I was labeled as a tricky player early on and have been regarded as tricky throughout my whole career. It was said that I was able to pull out tricks from nowhere.

Playing chess has many aspects that can be useful in everyday situations like planning, concentration and combinations. You learn to win but also to lose and to be creative.

I think it's very natural to get nervous. I've usually got concerns about a specific thing in the opening which might worry me. I have to be relaxed and balanced emotionally and then I can concentrate on the moves during the game. Then things will be ok.

India and China are improving by leaps and bounds and it will be their chess players who will lead the revolution of the XXI century.

One can say that in the last decades chess has become more of a sport than of a science. I see it from an artistic point of view.

Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don't have this when you play a computer. I can't confuse it

In chess the most unbelievable thing for me is that it's a game for everybody: rich, poor, girl, boy, old, young. It's a fantastic game which can unite people and generations! It's a language which you'll find people "speak" in every country. If you reach a certain level you find a very rich world! Art, sport, logic, psychology, a battlefield, imagination, creativity not only in practical games but don't forget either how amazing a feeling it is to compose a study, for example (unfortunately that's not appreciated these days but it's a fantastic part of chess!).