When I was preparing for one term's work in the Botvinnik school I had to spend a lot of time on king and pawn endings. So when I came to a tricky position in my own games I knew the winning method.

We know that the governments in most of the successor states formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union are replaced through a process of regular elections.

By strictly observing Botvinnik's rule regarding the thorough analysis of one's own games, with the years I have come to realize that this provides the foundation for the continuous development of chess mastery.

That machines will surpass us in intelligence is inevitable. What it means is unknowable. Will they be sentient? What will they care about in the sense that determines our human motivations? All the theorizing by the experts and non-experts makes for interesting conversations and dramatic headlines, but it's more likely we will be surprised by how our technology develops and how it is used, as we so often are.

I don't make any secret of the fact that I'm closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats. But even under a President Hillary Clinton, US foreign policy toward Moscow would probably be more critical and confrontational. I hope it isn't too late for that.

All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after Kasparov.

A machine helps us to annihilate our weaknesses. We don't have a steady hand. We can lose all vigilance. We can be distracted by something that is not that relevant. But we have intuition. We can feel certain things. And with a machine you can check whether it's right or wrong. That's why by bringing the two together, you create a very, very powerful combination.