Chess Is My Life!: The most comfortable way to follow the Carlsen-Anand match

If a poll were to be carried out in the world with the following question:
"Your house is on fire. What is the one thing that you will definitely try to save?"

I think almost 50% of the people would say "Mobile Phone". The point I am trying to make here is that cell phones have become such an integral part of our lives, that a day without it is simply unimaginable.
Yet, if you see chess players they are usually working all the time on their laptops or computers. Are the mobile phones completely useless to them? I don't think so. I feel the answer lies in the fact that there are so very few good mobile applications available out there. But there is one man who has decided to change that.

Asim Periera: single handedly churning out some awesome mobile applications

A look at Asim's facebook cover photo reveals this:

These are all the amazing apps that Asim has made in the past. Of particular note is the last one with an orange knight called the Follow Chess app. You can view all the live games and latest tournaments on that app. And I am in excellent company when it comes to Follow Chess app lovers!

You know this man is doing a great job when he is give a compliment by none other than the great Vishy Anand. You can download the Follow Chess app from here.

So when Asim says that he has come up with an application for the World Championship match 2014 between Carlsen vs Anand, you must definitely pay attention to it.

The app is made by NexM, a company that Asim has created.

That is the logo of the app

In the description, it is mentioned that this is the official app of the FIDE World Championship 2014.

Ok let's dive into the app to see what are its features.

1. Follow Live Games

Just imagine, this scenario, you are in a classroom and the teacher is boring the life out of you. All you can think of is the World Championship match (if you are reading this blog so carefully, you have to be a chess lover! ) . You ask your friend via whatsapp to send you a screenshot of the position. First of all he has to be online, even if he is, you have to download the picture he has sent you! So many hassles! If you have this app: as soon as a move is made in Sochi, it will be updated on your mobile device. And there are two engines (critter and stockfish) installed in this app to help you analyze. You only need to download another small app called "Analyze This" which is totally free to use this function.

2. Instant Notifications

Sometimes these guys (Anand and Carlsen) indulge in a long think. For eg. in the 9th game of the 2013 match, Anand thought for nearly an hour for one move. How do you know that a move has been made? This has been taken care of! There are three options in the settings:

1. Notify me when the game is about to start

2. Notify me when the moves are made

3. Notify me when the the game ends

As you can see, these notifications will come with a small logo on top of your smart phone which means that either of Anand or Carlsen has just pressed the clock! :)

3. Live updates on Home Screen

Convenience can have no limits and the app takes it to the next level. Suppose you do not always want to go to the app to see if a move is made, you can use the app widget and drag the board to your home screen where you can see the moves being updated without having to press any buttons! Super thinking!

4. Tactics by IM Swayams Mishra

The first part was about how to follow the match. But the app doesn't restrict itself to just broadcasting the moves. It also has training material. There are 32 tactical positions, carefully selected by my good friend and also a strong chess player IM Swayams Mishra. The cool thing about these puzzles is that if you think Nde5 is the correct move in the above position (which is the correct move!) then the next move Bxg4 is automatically played. So it is a training much like a real game where the opponent is making the moves. After you have solved the problem entirely, the complete annotations can be seen.

The creator of the tactical positions: Swayams Mishra. At a rating of 2491 his credentials cannot be doubted!

5. Previous games annotated by IM Sagar Shah

My favourite part of the app! :) Here you will find 37 previous encounters of Vishy Anand vs Magnus Carlsen deeply annotated. Out them 24 have been annotated by me. I particularly like the 10 annotated games of the last World Championship match which have been analyzed in great depth. This feature gives you a lot of material to work with and it goes without saying that after seeing so many games of Carlsen and Anand you will be in a better position to gauge the styles of these two players.

6. Integrated Twitter account

This is a feature I really like. All you need to have is a twitter account. You enter your username and password and the app instantly syncs your device with all the tweets all around the world that has #CarlsenAnand in it! It's simply amazing! There are so many people tweeting, you can really get the inside news! Not to mention you yourself can start tweeting effortlessly! :)

2014 Match games annotated

And Lastly, All the games that have been played will be analysed by the author of these lines and you will get the analysis before the next game begins!

It will not be an easy task but I am up for it! :)

Just in case you were wondering whether this app will take away a lot of your phone's battery, you might want to read this:

The app only does its work when the server notifies it that a move has been made, instead of continuously connecting to the server every few minutes. This saves lot of device battery and you can always keep your data connection ON.

The credentials of Asim Periera cannot be questioned. He had made the 2013 World Championship official app which was extremely well received having nearly 1,20,000 downloads. This year with all his experience, he has just created a much more beautiful app.