Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.

Chess is not dominoes

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice.

I would not draw definitive conclusions from that. If we look at South and North Korea, it is pretty hard to believe that we're dealing with the same people. Half of the people are forced to live in a concentration camp; the other have created one of the most dynamic economies in the world.

Any experienced player knows how a change in the character of the play influences your psychological mood.

I would like to travel to my country again, to a country without a dictatorship, to a post-Putin Russia.

The only game [Vladimir] Putin can play is to establish a lifelong dictatorship in the country, at first de facto and finally also de jure. In this case, [Dmitri] Medvedev is an interim figure bound to assist Putin in his plan to guarantee a smooth transition to a new term in office.