A sensation, hidden in the depths of my emotional memory, was suddenly revived: what if... What if for me The Variation is not dead? If The Variation is alive?!

First and foremost it is essential to understand the essence, the overall idea of any fashionable variation, and only then include it in one's repertoire. Otherwise the tactical trees will conceal from the player the strategic picture of the wood, in which his orientation will most likely be lost.

Analysis, if it is really carried out with a complete concentration of his powers, forms and completes a chess player.

Analysis is a glittering opportunity for training: it is just here that capacity for work, perseverence and stamina are cultivated, and these qualities are, in truth, as necessary to a chess player as a marathon runner.

My most difficult opponent is myself. When I am playing I often involuntarily make a world champion out of a candidate master.

In those years, it was easier to win the Soviet Championship than a game against 'Iron Tigran'.