Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it

If you have a strong opponent, a competition is stimulating. I am generally most open to ideas when I have had a bad result. In chess, too, players specialise. This specialty then becomes an entry barrier.

I appreciate the support and anyone who takes up a position on my behalf. Especially in matches, this feeling that there are people behind you, gives me a lot of strength.

I was very lucky that while I was a chess player in a country where chess was not a big deal, I happened to be in the one city where there was a sprouting chess team: Chennai.

In any match, there are few critical moments where there's no second best decision. The rest of the moves are intuitive.

It is important that you don't let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid.

My job is to play chess, the game that I love. I achieve what I can in chess. That is what I focus on. Basically, I am always focused on playing the game, and this is important to me.