I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.

Constructs like race will decline in relevance in a roboticized world. That how well one human subset or community - a race, a nationality, a religion - is doing will be secondary to how well humanity in general is doing in face of the robot revolution.

The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.

We have again a strange gap. We have the big scientific discoveries around the second, third century BC. Then we have an invention of the so-called Arab system, the positional system of counting with zero dated to the eighth or ninth century.

We are living in a world where major states and large geopolitical projects have to prove their competitive edge. It is clear, as well, that with regard to the intensifying American-Chinese confrontation and the inert power of a united Europe, Russia has to make up its mind - because it is losing ground as an independent center of power.

The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. Today I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early.

Chess is mental torture.