 Alejandro Ramirez had a tough day in office as he went down to Le Quang Liem. He joins us to talk about his game and also gives us some insights into the world championship. Alejandro, it looked like he was struggling from the start. What happened, caught in opening prep? No, I think I just played terribly today. I wasn't able to put one single good idea forward and every move was bad. I don't know how I played chess like this ever, but I was having a good event. So far, I had been a pretty good year in chess and this was an unbelievable disaster. Not counting today, have you been pleased with the quality of your play so far? Not counting today, I've actually done pretty well. I was very happy with my first round game. My game against Buxa was also pretty nice and I had a solid draw on round two. My game against Gawain was just really, really fun, so I was happy about that. So not counting today? Yes, everything's great. It's your first time in Gibraltar. Your impressions about playing here? Oh, I love it. This is a really nice tournament. It's incredibly strong. I wish that I could play chess. That would be nice for the tournament. But I think it's really an amazing open and I hope to be coming back very often. We definitely hope to have you back here with us. Now you're involved with a number of things in St. Louis. You work with the chess club. You're involved with chess activities around the university. You also work with Fabiano. How do you find the time to play? I don't, actually, and you can see that I shouldn't. But for example, this year, okay, the year started right after university championship. I played an open tournament. I'm going to play this one. I'll play one in March. And I think that's it. I think those are all my tournaments this year. I don't think I'm playing any more than that. And it was very similar to what happened last year where after Ray Kibikopin, I just didn't play chess at all anymore. I love chess, but I just have a lot of trouble finding times for these long tournaments. Right. Now you were an integral part of Fabiano's team for the world championship. How was that experience? Oh, it was unbelievable. I mean, just being able to be in the team, of course, Fabiano is more than just a boss. He's somebody that means a lot to me. So I was very happy to be part of the team and be able to do as much as I could for him. And for me personally, I thought it was incredibly rewarding. It was very stressful. It was a lot of work, but I was very happy to be part of the team. And I hope that we're there for the next year. Give us some insights into the expectations going into the match. I think at some point there is so much work and everything is so overwhelmed that you don't have any expectations. You're just kind of going into it. Obviously, every game we took it one step at a time and every game was difficult. To be honest, we wanted to win, but we just didn't know how it was going to go down. You know, there were so many ups and downs emotionally. I think at some point during the first game, I mean, we were like destroyed emotionally. And then he came back, somehow didn't lose that one. And we thought, okay, he didn't lose this one. He's not going to lose a game, which was true somehow until the rapids. But as far as expectations go, I mean, we just didn't know what to expect. Right. Now you and Fabiano are also very good friends, and you worked for a few months before the match as part of the team. What strengths and weaknesses did you identify in Magnus? Well, our preparation wasn't very much focused on one person. I think it would be difficult to just prepare against, let's say, Magnus. I think we were more focused on making Fabio a better player. So it was more just about getting into really good shape for the match? Yeah, and I think he was. Obviously a world championship is different than other tournaments. The pressure is enormous, and it's difficult to show your best trust in that kind of scenarios. But I do think we did as good of a job as we could, and I think he was happy with the work we did. Right. Now going into the match, there was no clear favorite, especially for the classical part. When we reached the tie breaks, the general opinion was that Magnus had an edge. What was the feeling in the team at that point? I think the rapid portion proved that Magnus did have an edge. A small one. Right. Now it was still a very, very big fight and a fantastic match. Well done. Well, thank you. I mean, obviously we were very a little disappointed by the time it finished, but I mean, the fight just starts again, right? Do you believe Fabiano will challenge Magnus once again? Yes, of course. All right. Well, thank you so much for giving us your insights on the world championship and joining us here. We hope to have you back in our studio on a better day. Yeah. Well, thank you. Hope to remember how to move the pieces at some point. Thanks Alejandro.