Book completed - Mind Master: Winning Lessons from a Champion's Life

      

I recently completed Mind Master: Winning Lessons From A Champion's Life (Hachette India, 2019) by GM Viswanathan Anand. Along with furnishing a number of highly appropriate "Training quotes of the day" the book provided unique insights into the former World Champion's mindset, training practices and toolkit for performing at the highest level. Here's a look at the table of contents:

The book itself is a mix of genres: personal memoir, professional/self-improvement advice, and chess history/politics from a first-person perspective. Despite the mashup format and being presented in a non-linear way, it actually works well and lives up to the title, mixing chess and life lessons in way accessible to the general (chess) public. It also relatably reflects Anand's personal voice - sometimes painfully, during candid descriptions of his low moments - although apparently it was professionally written from interviews with him.

The chess references are (thankfully) not dumbed down, although it is written with a non-chess professional audience in mind and is not really a "chess book" in the traditional sense of having a technical focus on the game. GM Yasser Seirawan's Chess Duels is perhaps the most similar to it in content, although Seriawan's focus is ultimately on the annotated games, while Anand's book contains only some key illustrative positions. 

Anand himself remains relevant in the chess world and this book is a rare, valuable and highly self-reflective treatment on what it takes to be a champion, including dealing with ugly personal and professional moments. This makes it a useful resource for serious aspiring chess improvers as well as an interesting inside look at world championship history. As is common with other top-level sports, the role of mindset and non-technical factors for a player is often decisive for performance, both on individual days and when striving long-term for increased levels of skill. These lessons are still very much applicable for those of use who are looking to achieve a level of chess mastery below that of World Champion.