Losing only one game in blitz is huge achievement: Anand

Chennai,Viswanathan Anand termed losing just one game at the World Blitz Championship in Riyadh as a huge achievement after capturing the title in the rapid event.
“It is a fantastic feeling to finish on the podium in the rapid and blitz because they are both very different formats,” Anand said.
“Losing just one game is a huge achievement in such an event,” he said after his third place finish behind Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin.
“One is 15 minutes plus 10 seconds, which is much slower, similar to a half-an-hour game. The second one is three minutes and two seconds. So, very different rhythms. Doing well in one doesn’t meant doing well in the other as well,” he added.
Anand endured a tough year, which included an early exit in the Chess World Cup in Georgia and finishing last in the recent London Chess Classic, before the turnaround towards the end of 2017.
He said he had peaked on the last day in both the tournaments. “In both, I peaked on the last day. The rapid tournament really came into my grasp only with my 14th round win (against Alexander Grischuk). And in the blitz, the second day was when I got going. It was only towards the second half of the second day that I really started to do well,” he said.
“So for me it is nice. Recently, my results in both rapid and blitz have suffered a bit. And I wanted to make amends. Realistically, I thought I would do better in one. So, to do it like this is fantastic,” he added.
“There are very few people who have finished on the podium in both formats. (Magnus) Carlsen, definitely. But I can’t think of too many other names. So that gives you an idea of the difficulty,” he added.