My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.
I spend hours playing chess because I find it so much fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I give up.
I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I’m just a normal person.
I enjoy hiking and skiing, like most Norwegians. In winter, there will be snow for months on end. In the summer, there are the long evenings to enjoy.
I really enjoy the experience of playing humans. The psychological game is so much more important.
I played like a child.
I honestly don’t read that much. Obviously I read chess books – in terms of favorites, Kasparov’s ‘My Great Predecessors’ is pretty good.
It’s nice to be financially secure. Apart from that, I really don’t care too much about money.
For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it’s also right.
I don’t look at computers as opponents. For me it is much more interesting to beat humans.
I feel sorry for players who are always lying awake at night, brooding over their games.
I was lucky enough to attend schools where they were understanding about when I needed to go abroad to play chess. Of course, socially it is important to go to school and interact with people your own age.
My former coach, Simen Agdestein, used to be the best player in Norway.
It’s easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common.
If you want to get to the top, there’s always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.
Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it’s no longer theoretically possible – then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.
I’m not really into rap.
It’s just not my nature to go around idolizing people.
Self-confidence is very important. If you don’t think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.
Sorry dude, I’m not that slow, nor that weak!
The most helpful thing I learnt from chess is to make good decisions on incomplete data in a limited amount of time.