On the whole, the life of a chess professional is not as easy as it appears at first sight. One needs to devote some ten hours a day to chess and to everything connected with it - physical and psycholgical preparation.

In this respect, I suppose I'm the total opposite of Garry [Kasparov]. With his very emotive body language at the [chess]board he shows and displays all his emotions. I don't.

I don't like to show my emotions at the board, not because they might give something away to an opponent, but because that's my style: I like to keep it to myself.

Chess is so deep, I simply feel lost.

I started playing chess when I was about 4 or 5 years old. It is very good for children to learn to play chess, because it helps them to develop their mental abilities. It also helps to consolidate a person's character, because as it happens both in life and in a chess game we have to make decisions constantly. In chess there is no luck and no excuses: everything is in your hands.

When I speak of the beauty of a game of chess, then naturally this is subjective. Beauty can be found in a very technical, mathematical game for example. That is the beauty of clarity.

No - I'm quite calm inside during the game for most of the time - not 100%, but generally very calm.