Anand's reign as the world champion came to a heart-breaking end today with Norway's Magnus Carlsen taking the crown after a hard-fought draw in the 10th game of the World Chess Championship match here.
Carlsen, who will be 23 years on 30th November, closed the championship with two games to spare by taking his tally to required 6.5 points out of a possible 10, winning three and drawing seven games.
"Its clear that Magnus dominated. At the start of the match I thought my chances depended on my ability to last long games without making a mistake. This year I have had problems with mistakes creeping in to my play. I tried to pay some attention to that. But in the end it was in vain because the way I lost the fifth game is exactly I thought I could not afford to lose. A fine position in the opening and slowly slip and so on," he noted.
"I think today I was just trying to keep playing and at some point started to make mistakes. I made a wrong queen move. I simply don't know the evaluation after the match, the knight ending is pretty dangerous," Anand said about the final game that ended in a draw.