The worst enemy of the strategist is the clock. Time trouble... Reduces us all to pure reflex and reaction, tactical play. Emotion and instinct cloud our strategic vision when there is no time for proper evaluation.

You know, if I'm in a bad mood, I always look at the chessboard, just to find something that can cheer me up.

A very strong player can manage and can just know how to manage a thousand positions. I get it; it's a very arbitrary number. So then you have the world champion who could do more. But, again, any increase in numbers creates, sort of, a new level of playing. And then you go to the very top, and the difference is so minimal, but it does exist. So even a few players who never became world champion, like Vassily Ivanchuk, for instance, I think they belong to the same category.

Kortchnoi's heritage is many-faceted - over the decades he has several times corrected and changed his style. But the main thing has invariably remained his search for chess truth.

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.

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.

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.