There are certainly loads of players that I admire; I try to learn from all of the great masters both of the past and contemporary as well.

In my experience, when I went to school, and especially in after-school, and during breaks, a lot of people wanted to sit down and play chess up till a certain age when it was not supposed to be cool anymore and people wanted to do other things.

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

I've never really had a favorite player, past or present.

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

I honestly don't read that much. Obviously I read chess books - in terms of favorites, Kasparov's 'My Great Predecessors' is pretty good.

I'm definitely the first no.1 in the world since Fischer, and probably at least since Kasparov, who probably has the most potential to dominate for the foreseeable future.