"But perhaps they were thrown off by my playing style, which was intuitive-and perhaps a little influenced by Vodka. I ran away with the match early. The result was overwhelmingly in my favour: four wins, five draws and only one loss –an annihilation. The Russians were stunned . I was pretty surprised myself."

“In one sense Vishy has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If he beats Magnus, people are going to say, 'my God, he really is one of the all-time greats!' and, if he loses, they will say, 'well, if only the ages had been reversed.”

“To become a world chess champion.”

“Age is part of it. For instance, I recognise that is going to do certain things because he's 22 and there are certain things I can do because I'm 43.”

“The fact is he outplayed me. He just proved to be stronger.”

“He must make sure Magnus is out of his comfort zone, he needs to direct the positions. It needs to be a mess. He needs to get Magnus into a brawl.”

“Magnus has many good qualities... he is very versatile and he can play a lot of positions at a very high level. He's also very flexible. And he has this amazing talent for grinding on, as you say. So that combination I was unable to deal with.”