My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.

For me, the most important thing is to continue to play well and to be a positive figure and hopefully a role model for kids as well.

I think with chess as with everything, marketing is the main issue.

You can feel the same thing in football or soccer - that for the best teams in Spain and England, for instance, the public... they're not really going to cheer at all when they play against bad teams unless they do something spectacular. Even if they're winning by a few goals they'll probably just say, "nah." That's normal and they're not excited about it.

I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal person.

I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.

All I expect are wins and to get pleasure from the game. And if someone thinks something about me, if someone's dissatisfied with something... that's not my headache. I hope someday I'll become World Champion - and I'll make all these people happy. But even if for some reason that doesn't happen it won't stop me getting pleasure from chess. I'm sure of that.