The chess match on this page, sponsored by the Butterfly Group of companies and organized by D. V. Sundar and the Tamil Nadu Chess Association, was played at Hotel Trident in Madras (= Chennai), India, 23-30 January 1991. Six other eighthfinal matches were played at about the same time in Riga, London, Sarajevo (two matches) and Wijk aan Zee (two matches). The eighth eighthfinal did not take place because Anatoly Karpov (the loser of the Kasparov - Karpov World Championship Match (1990)) was seeded into the quarterfinals. With pairings as announced by FIDE on 26 July 1990, the matches were held in order to have a challenger for world champion Garry Kasparov.
The event was opened by Dhruv Sawhney, the president of AlCF (All India Chess Federation). Anand and Dreev had both qualified from the Manila Interzonal (1990). Anand was seconded only by his friend Ferdinand Hellers, who arrived in Madras 10 days before the match with his Toshiba Laptop brimful with Dreev's games and possible improvements. Dreev was seconded by Alexander Filipenko, and also helped by the psychologist Alexander Yekhevich and a non-playing Chef de Mission or "fixer". The match was best of eight games, or the first to achieve 4½ points. If 4-4, two playoff games would be played, and if still equal, two more playoff games. If 6-6, drawing of lots. Time control in the playoff games was 45 minutes for the first 60 moves, and 15 more minutes for every 20 moves thereafter. Prize fund: 20,000 Swiss francs. Chief arbiter Anwarur Rahman Khan was assisted by V. Kameswaran.
Madras, India, 23-30 January 1991
Age Elo 1 2 3 4 5 6
Anand 21 2635 1 ½ 0 1 1 1 4½
Dreev 22 2625 0 ½ 1 0 0 0 1½
Anand went on to the Karpov - Anand Candidates Quarterfinal (1991)."Anand is a chess extrovert — a restless quicksilver genius. He thinks and plays at blinding speed. He loves dynamic positions where things must be done in a hurry. Anand is also a pragmatist who will trust his fantastic intuitlon, rather than attempt to calculate everything. Quite often in wild positions he analyses only one move — the best one. Where others spend time calculating, Anand plays what he thinks is the best move instantly. He is very rarely wrong in his judgement. Dreev on the other hand is a perfectionist — an artist who produces slow motion masterpieces. No violence — just steady improvement is his forte. He likes static situations where he can score on points with good technique while Anand goes for the jugular everytime. Dreev also spends the precious extra minutes, in the early middle game looking for the very best plan. He risks the agonies of "Zeitnot'' ("No time"), as chess players call it regularly. Against Anand the risk became a certainty and Dreev could never come to terms with the clock." (Sportsworld)
Sources
Mark Weeks' website (https://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/91...)
FIDE rating list January 1991 (https://web.archive.org/web/2022100...)
Sakkélet, 13 May 1991, p. 106 (https://adt.arcanum.com/en/view/Sak...)
Jaque 303, 1 April 1991, pp. 210-212 (https://www.olimpbase.org/leagueES/...)
Algemeen Dagblad, 27 July 1990, p. 1 (https://www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/v...)
Norsk Sjakkblad, February 1991, pp. 6-9 (https://dnkjuhc6if10z.cloudfront.ne...)
Bjarke Barth Sahl in Chess Life, May 1991, pp. 26-29 (https://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/C...)
Sportsworld, vol. 12 no. 10, 23-29 January 1991, pp. 24-25 (https://archive.org/details/in.erne...)
Sportsworld, vol. 12 no. 13, 13-19 February 1991, pp. 10-21 (https://archive.org/details/in.erne...)
P. K. Ajith Kumar in The Hindu, 14 November 2013 (https://www.thehindu.com/news/citie...)
Original collection: Game Collection: Anand - Dreev Candidates Eighthfinal by User: Tabanus. Game dates (January 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30) are from Sportsworld (Game 1) and the Dutch newspapers at https://www.delpher.nl/.
Kibitzing
