Anand with wife Aruna

Back in Europe you immediately went to Davos...
...where I had been invited to take part in the annual conference of the World Economic Forum. It was a new experience for me. A lot of scientists, influential politicians and businessman met in Davos. I had a lot of interesting discussions.

For the first time in many years you decided against playing in Wijk aan Zee. Only in Linares, where you had won the previous two years, you came back to the tournament arena.
Yes, and despite the break I played quite well in the beginning. I won the first game against Radjabov. But against Aronian I suffered a blackout in a clearly better position, which cost me the game. In the second part of the tournament my luck returned, particularly so in the games against Ivanchuk and Grischuk. All in all, I cannot complain. My result reflects my play. Altogether my performance was not as steady as it was in the two previous years. But I did not think that I played badly.

Somewhat surprisingly, Grischuk won. Considering his permanent time trouble it is amazing that he is so successful.
If I have only five minutes left on the clock, I start to get nervous. For Grischuk time trouble only begins, when he has five seconds left. Before that he carefully writes the moves on his scoresheet, including minutes and seconds spent by each player – all that with unbelievable calm. Maybe he needs the thrill. At any rate he is an excellent blitz player. One must never underestimate him in time trouble.

In Bonn you surprised your challenger Kramnik with 1.d4 after having almost exclusively played 1.e4 before. In Linares you tried your new opening repertoire for the first after the World Championship match in a regular tournament. Were you happy with the results?
Yes, I could use a couple of things I had prepared for the match in Bonn. For me it was important not to lose the feeling for 1.d4-openings because I have worked very hard to get it. The mistakes I made in Linares did not happen in the opening.

Did you have problems to play after your long break?
That’s difficult to say. The first part of the tournament went better for me than the second. I did not necessarily play better with more practice. At the end of the tournament I made eight draws in a row. That is not really satisfying. It simply was no particularly good tournament – but neither the worst. This happens. 50% in Linares is no disaster.

In the Amber tournament in Nice, which followed right after Linares, and where blindfold and rapid chess were played you at first seemed to follow a similar pattern as you did in Spain.
I again started somewhat shaky. But you play 22 games in the Amber tournament and you can quickly recover losses by winning. After the first rest day things went pretty well. With a little bit of luck I would have won the tournament. However, in the end Aronian finished first, closely followed by me, Kramnik and Carlsen.
 
In the blindfold game you won against Kramnik, who played his beloved Petroff. How important was this success against your rival?
Well, every win against the Petroff is great – particularly against Kramnik. Of course it was nice to win against him and to draw the following rapid game rather easily with Black. But these things are only nice for a short moment because the tournament goes on.

The encounter with Kramnik had no particular significance for you?
Maybe it was more important than I would like to admit to myself. But I try not to take it too seriously. You play so many games in Nice. It is difficult to really cherish a win because you quickly have to focus on the next game.