Viswanathan Anand of India has retained his FIDE World Chess Championship title after drawing the 11th game in the 2008 World Chess Championship in Bonn, Germany. Anand and his challenger, 2006 World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia will be sharing the €1.5M prize fund.

The 2008 World Chess Championship had ended earlier than expected with 2 points gap between Indian Viswanathan Anand and his Russian challenger Vladimir Kramnik. Anand had won in three of the eleven games played, lost once and drew in seven games, including the final determinant game where he was playing White.

Anand did not earn his second undisputed World Chess Championship title without sweating. On the final game, Anand went for the conventional 1. e4, while most of the chess match he preferred to open with a 1. d4. Kramnik responded with an atypical Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense, a response that surprised Anand and put Kramnik in an awkward situation, playing an unfamiliar line at this crucial chess game. Yet, it took 19 moves for Anand to feel assured with his predictable victory and 24 moves for Kramnik to give all hopes regarding an upcoming win and to offer a draw.

Viswanathan Anand, 38, also known as the “Tiger from Madras” was defeating Vladimir Kramnik and claiming the World Chess Championship title for the second year in a row; in the 2007 World Chess Championship in Mexico City, he was challenging Kramnik, then the defending 2006 Classical World Chess Champion, thus becoming the first Indian World Chess Champion. In 2009, Anand will be defending his title against either FIDE 2005 World Chess Champion Veselin Topolov or Gata Kamas, who won the Chess World Cup in 2007.