I'm becoming my worst enemy: Anand

Struggling for consistency, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand on Tuesday said he is becoming "my own worst enemy".

Anand missed the Grand Chess Tour Finals by just 1.5 points, getting eliminated after managing just one point in the last five games of the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz tournament that concluded here on Tuesday.

"I've no words to describe. I would give myself a chance and then I would become my own worst enemy. That probably bugs me. If I had no chance then it would have been nice actually," Anand said after the tournament.

The biggest heartbreak came in the round 15 when the former Blitz king lost to Dutch number one, Anish Giri, from a winning position and saw his flag fall in front of the crestfallen spectators at the National Library Auditorium.

Such was the despair that Anand remembered veteran John Cleese's dialogue from the 1986 movie Clockwise where the British actor says: "It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
"I was at home when he was practising for his competition. He took it very seriously, putting the soundtrack and would the steps. It paid off."