It's just not my nature to go around idolizing people.

For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it's also right.

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.

Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it's no longer theoretically possible - then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.

Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.

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

Contrary to many young Colleagues, I do believe that it makes sense to study the Classics.