For young players, their minds are not overloaded. I am 54 with four kids and I do many other things. Even if I stopped everything else, spent months working just on chess, for a long match against most of the top players, a classical match, six hours, say, I don't stand a chance. I have a better chance in shorter matches. Rapid is 25 minutes, or blitz events where you have five minutes to make a move, or bullet games, where it is one minute. For blitz, five-minutes chess, I would be top ten, top five. But longer games, no chance.

The Kremlin is constantly changing the rules of the game to suit its purposes. We are not playing chess, we're playing roulette.

There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end.

Furthermore, a large portion of the assets of leading Russian figures is mixed, meaning that it is not quite clear how to counter this development.

[Vladimir] Putin wants to keep [Bashar] Assad in power and expand his own military base in Syria, whatever the cost. I even believe he has an interest in more and more people fleeing the country. The flow of refugees improves his negotiating position toward the West, including the German chancellor.

It's not enough to be talented. It's not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you use to reach your decisions.

If you're already in a fight, you want the first blow to be the last and you had better be the one to throw it.