 She created history by winning the women's world championship at the age of 16 and she's won it four times since. She's fearless on the board and off it. Women are inspired by her chess, men fear to play her. I'm very honoured to have with us four times women's world champion. Who you fan? Hi, Tanya. Hi, you fan. Welcome back to Gibraltar. You really like it here? Yeah, of course. I mean, it's one of the best open tournaments I've played and this is my third time to be here. The first time was in 2012 where my result was kind of fantastic. I have to admit that actually that tournament was one of my best tournaments until this moment. Best women players are playing here, but for recent years even there are so many top players from the world are coming here. For example, this time I heard that the average rating from top 10 players is like 2,750 or something. It's incredible. That's amazing for an open tournament. Also today I saw a website like 78 or 76 grandmasters are playing here. So I got surprised to see that Open could attract all players from the world to come here to this very beautiful rock place. Absolutely. And you find out you travel a lot with your mother. In fact, she's here with you this time as well. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that relationship and how much it... Has there ever been any pressure or is it just full support? Of course, it's full of support. My mom accompanied me since very young age because I went to another province to learn chess when I was like seven years old. So that's why at that moment my mom decided to kind of not give up but temporarily pause her job to accompany me and sooner or later we got used to this. And currently my mom accompanied me mainly not because of... to take care of my daily life but from psychological point of view we both got used to this traveling tournament together. It's very important to have, okay, it could be best friends or it could be relatives or the people you really, really enjoy to spend time with them. And I could say like that my mom really helped me a lot for this series of chess achievements. Right. And now you're one of the big stars from China and China is a powerhouse in chess. So what is the secret behind your country's success? Yeah, actually for a woman's chess actually China has a brilliant resource even before I came to the chess world. And recent years the open team, the man's chess actually improved a lot. China are well-known by teamwork. Yes. Especially where the men are helping women to improve their chess results but currently it's different because our boys, our guys, they also played quite well so they also need to focus on their chess. So now that's why I said the situation changed probably there could be a small group or even by individual but just like people, especially the young people are encouraged by the previous results so they wanted to devote themselves to the chess world. I'm always very glad to do some promotion not only in China but all around the world especially for women's chess but in China also. I could feel like when the top players are playing Simon giving a lecture or things like that or even giving a speech to share their experience the young children always really get inspired and wanted to say, oh, mama, dad, I really want to learn chess. It also reminds me one of my early experience where I was one of the participants to play as Simon with a top Grandmaster and after that game I remember I got some advantage and then the Grandmaster offered me a draw and I agreed, very happy and later I thought, oh, maybe I could also be a very good chess player so after that experience I think I was trying more harder on chess. You were motivated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like from my own experience I realized how motivated it could be. And you found if you had to give one advice to the upcoming girls who are taking up the sport professionally who are at that level where they decided that they want to play chess as a career, what would be your advice to them? Hard to say, I mean as a professional chess player of course I would say something like you should have full concentration and inspiration for chess, you should truly love it but your inner peace is not because of, you know, your parents told you to learn or they told you it could be a good profession for your future career but you should truly love it. But on the other hand I could also suggest that while you're learning chess you shouldn't give up like studying or other daily life from a very young age until you could make the decision for your own life because currently I see a lot of young kids where the parents wanted them to own inner chess trying to be a top player at a young age. It's good, I mean from one side but on the other side you also lack something of the life that for that kind of age you could experience so I suggest that you should just keep chess as one of your interests until you could make up your mind that what kind of role do you want to experience in the future? Right, now Yuvan you took a very big decision when you opted out of the Grand Prix in many ways you were okay with letting go of your world championship title without playing for it because you strongly stand against the knockout system and you've been very vocal and passionate about it you stand for what you believe in but it must have been a very tough decision to make Yeah, actually to see backwards that was a very tough decision but when I made it it's like naturally I had this idea I want to set up my mind for this not thinking that it's really a critical moment because I was under this circle more than six years since I won the first World Champion and I played all the different formats so I could say that I have experienced that what kind of format is the most fair tournament to select a best player for both men and women so that's why I think in case to improve women's chess we need to suffer a moment that there will be somebody to stand out to say their point of view to express that what could be the way that chess could improve in that sense and of course this is critical you know why because now it's kind of I need to even put myself more harder in case to be more comfortable in the open section because the previous time probably I could say okay I might enjoy my performance in women's chess I could kind of keep the title for many years it's things like this but now I mean I automatically like give up that chance which means you need to like perform better in open section in case to stand there and that's very interesting what you said and I think that is one of the big reasons why people draw so many parallels between you and Judith Polger because in many ways by being by far the strongest women chess player you are letting go of that in many ways to even focus to be able to play in the top level open section I believe most of the female players are more or less inspired by her experience or at least she is one of the model for the young generation I have to admit that although I think our case is not something exactly the same because Judith quit women's chess at her very young age even she didn't play any of the world championship circle but for my case it's different because for me I think at least you should kind of showing your performance in women's section then that could be your next step so I just wanted to make my own road and you have often said that you are that chess is a big part of your life but it's not your life yeah but to be someone of your level one would think that it requires 100% devotion so how did you I mean how do you balance that out and how is that even possible to be at this level when chess is just a part of your life well I think that's my something came from nature when I was born because I feel that I'm kind of person who doesn't think that there will only be one thing in your life you should focus on trying to be the best on the other hand I want to enjoy life from different spikes trying to make myself step to the new directions trying to experience more and trying to explore my potentials in different areas so chess is a part of my life and it contributes me until this moment so I really appreciate it but I also hope that to learn from this experience I could make more for this world not only contributes the chess for the next generation but in general so what is it that would really make you satisfied with your career in the game well that's actually a good question when I said answer I mean I don't really have an answer for that because normally I don't make an ultimate goal in any aspects of the life because I thought that once you achieve that you might get confused by where you want to go in the future so that's why I thought instead of that I should make a small goal step by step like progressively improve in that case you will have the hope for the life at any moment so that's why I guess for chess it's the same that's very nice so what you're saying is to make smaller goals and in the process of doing those smaller goals achieve the bigger picture in life yeah probably when you really achieve something after after decades and when you look back you realize ah actually that could be my ultimate goal let's say for chess or for other career yeah I think that makes more sense in case to motivate yourself of course probably because my personality is that I need something to motivate myself I mean if you're from different personality probably you could just make one goal and step by step how to say continuously to achieve that but for me probably I'm another type of person right no well we wish you all the best with your step by step goals and yes all the best for this tournament as well thank you for talking to us thanks my pleasure