You playing chess well is just a reflection of your inner thought process and your ability to maintain discipline throughout. If we can teach every child that, then we've taught them to be better people, better friends and better citizens.

His tenacity is unmatched in my opinion. Incredible how someone could have suffered that long and come back out of prison with such a good heart and positive things to say and do.

I see myself more as an ambassador of the game. And I hope to bring chess to a higher level in the United States. Making bigger tournaments, more interesting events. Making it a respectable profession for young people to be able to pursue in the future.

Today, you talk to kids about books and they almost want to run away because they've got computers, iPads and all that, while we had to actually sit down and crack the books open and go line by line to try to learn all that stuff.

You playing chess well is just a reflection of your inner thought process and your ability to maintain discipline throughout. If we can teach every child that, then we've taught them to be better people, better friends and better citizens.

If the kids get a good grasp of what the main lessons are for chess after two or three years of staying with the game, then you've given them brain food and you've given them a skill that can last them a lifetime.

I think that by and large chess players have been very kind. Like I said there have been a few incidents, but they certainly didn't serve to bring me down any.