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

People ask what my goal is. I don't have a goal.

Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.

One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people - men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach.

If you want to get to the top, there's always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.

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.

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.