Each match I approach like a new one. The work is so immense that you don’t have time to sit and ponder.

When there’s an important tournament going on, I try and stay in a bubble. It’s easy that way because then you don’t have to worry about anything else.

I think the draw quotient has always been high in world championship matches because the amount of effort people put into neutralizing each other’s openings. It’s just now with computers that it has reached a new level.

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.

In the knockout tournaments, it’s futile to prepare for a grand finale. You may have worked out many strategies for the final. But you may lose in the first round itself.

I don’t know how many calories an average chess player burns per game, but it often exceeds that of a player in ball games. It is not only the chess as such: You need to be fit and undergo complicated preparation.

My hand was unwilling to move until my mind found a path.

I’ll take my five positions per second any day, thank you.

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

My parents were very supportive of my chess. When I got home after a game of chess, having missed school or something, they always made me feel very welcome; I didn’t feel guilty at all about pursuing chess with such fervour. They never, for instance, perceived sports as a rival to academics.