“Chess has given me a lot more than I could ask for. I have been able to feel special, travel the world and do what I truly enjoy. Moreover, chess players love being their own boss and hate having to wake up early!”

“Professional players work almost every day, for hours on end, and the emphasis is on the word 'work.' It can be with a partner or it can be alone, but professional chess is always a pursuit of something new and surprising.”

“I go to the gym every day. That tends to taper off when I'm at a tournament. During tournaments, I'm not trying to build fitness. I'm simply trying to keep away any kind of tension. I go for long walks to clear my head.”

“I attend to my fitness. I go the gym every day and try to maintain my physical fitness; without that, it is tough to take challenges on the chess board.”

“There is technology where you can watch the match live online and also on TV. If people understood the game, I'm sure we would have a lot of chess fans by now.”

“Chess has given me a lot more than I could ask for. I have been able to feel special, travel the world and do what I truly enjoy. Moreover, chess players love being their own boss and hate having to wake up early!”

“In chess, knowledge is a very transient thing. It changes so fast that even a single mouse-slip sometimes changes the evaluation.”

“There are some aspects of work you need to keep working on and no matter what environment you are in. Continuous learning is very important. It's what I call 'competitive tension', which is about having a competition around.”

“I keep forcing, I keep learning new things in the game, and so far I have been taking challenges as they come.”