I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate [situations]. When you are behind there are two strategies - counter-attack or all men to the defences. I’m good at finding the right balance between those.

Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything.

I'm more interested in the games than the people.

It's easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common.

There are so many games that I've seen that I've learned from. I never - that's also part of the same - never single out a particular player or a particular game.

I played like a child!

Kids love games and chess is a game where you have to sit down and concentrate and it just helps in every way.