Chess grandmaster (GM) Viswanathan Anand won on Saturday the World Chess Championship after drawing his 14th round game against Hungarian GM Peter Leko in a 20-move Ruy-Lopez Marshall Attack.

 

Anand only needed to draw to win this title, the only way GM Boris Gelfand (Israel) had a chance to obtain this title was if Anand lost against Leko and Gelfand had to defeat Morozevich.

 

"Youy can imagine how happy I am to win this title without having lost any game in this event," Anand told Xinhua.

 

Anand, 37, was born in Madras, India. He was International Chess Federation (FIDE) champion from 2000-2002 and his FIDE rating is 2,792, (No. 1 on the July 2007 list).

 

Anand's peak FIDE rating was 2,803 on April 2006.

 

Anand is one of only four players in history to break the 2,800 mark on the FIDE rating list and he is the only sixth person to head the list since its inception in 1970; the other five being Robert James Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Gary Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Vesselin Topalov.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2007)