Yeah, I used to dress badly until I was about sixteen. But people just didn’t seem to have enough respect for me, you know And I didn’t like that, so I decided I’d have to show them they weren’t any better than me, you know?
Well, I kind of split my life into two pieces. One was where my chess career lies. There, I kept my sanity, so to speak, and my logic. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career too. But I still was studying chess. I wasn’t just “trusting in God” to give me the moves.
In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory.
There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.
