For me, chess is a language, and if it's not my native tongue, it is one I learned via the immersion method at a young age.

Machines taking over jobs - it's the history of civilization. Replacing farm animals, old forms of manual labor, now taking over small, menial aspects of cognition. But there's still plenty of room for creativity, for curiosity - many things that are related to passion, like art. But also, things about human communication and challenges, massive challenges that we left behind because we didn't want to take so much risk, such as space exploration, deep ocean exploration.

Chess strength in general and chess strength in a specific match are by no means one and the same thing.

I wouldn't overestimate the importance of my popularity in the country and abroad but at the end of the day it's not as important because I believe that my presence here could make some difference and it could encourage people.

Learning from our mistakes is critical for improving, but even I don't have patience for ranking my regrets. Regret is a negative emotion that inhibits the optimism required to take on new challenges. You risk living in an alternative universe, where if only you had done this or that differently, things would be better. That's a poor substitute for making your actual life better, or improving the lives of others. Regret briefly, analyze and understand, and then move on, improving the only life you have.

Of course, if people do not want to do any work then it is better to start the game from a random position.

The stock market and the gridiron and the battlefield aren't as tidy as the chessboard, but in all of them, a single, simple rule holds true: make good decisions and you'll succeed; make bad ones and you'll fail.