 I learned chess from my father when I was eight years old. I don't really remember playing my first game, but for sure I enjoyed it because I kept playing on my own, you know, with a board, without an opponent, making moves for the two colors, trying to imagine how the game would continue. So yes, I had great passion for the game and I had fun with it. My first tournament, one must have been a junior tournament for kids. We drove around a lot when I was very young. My father and my family, they all came with me basically every Sunday to go around the area and just play chess with anybody. First, it was a children's tournament and then it was with grown-ups when I was, let's say, 12 or 13 years old. And yes, those were our great memories. Chess became my career sort of automatically on its own. I didn't really take a decision. I just enjoyed the game and spent so much time and what I became better at it. And it sort of came very naturally. It was really what I wanted to do and I'm very happy to be able to play chess. Of course, in life, you can't have everything at the same time. So chess requires dedication, it requires spending time, it requires energy. You have to travel around, you have to be in the right places. And it's a very interesting life. In Italy, chess is growing. I think the level is improving, which makes it harder for me as a chess player to keep up with all of the nation's best players. So it's an interesting situation. This format of the men against women tournament is new to me. And I think it's a great idea. Just 10 men against 10 women. The matchup from the organization is very interesting because rating-wise, the two teams are very close. And well, I'm the man captain. So obviously I will be supporting my team and I really hope we can win. But it's a very close match and it's going to be interesting and I think fun for both the players and spectators and anybody who wants to guess the results or has any opinion about it, it will be interesting and we'll find out what's going to happen. I have played in a Sheveningen format tournament before, but it was not like this. Here, every team, I mean all of the players from each team will play with the same color every day, which means that tonight we're going to have the drawing of lots. And either the men or the women will all play with white tomorrow or we'll all play with black. So that's not the most usual format as far as I know. But it's going to be interesting. It will basically mean that one of the two teams will have the initiative with the white cars and that will be true every day, which means we'll probably have, you know, on each day, one team attacking and one team defending. And we'll see. I'm very happy with team competitions. You can share your positive emotions. You win as a team, you're part of a group, as long as people are nice to each other and you have a good time. I think it can help players bring out their best. Generally speaking, playing in a team competition is a bit different because you don't only have to take care of your own game, but also of the overall result. However, here, things are different. The final score will be matched on individual points and not on team points, which means we don't need to win each day. Let's say we don't need to score five and a half every day to win. We just need to score more points than the opponent. Why is this important? Because in a situation where, let's say a team is five, four, normally there is a pressure on the weaker team with four points to score in the last game because four and a half will just be a loss as much as four. So in this case, you really need to push the last game, take extra risks. And as a player, that's actually a bit unpleasant because it's not your fault and your game will be influenced by other game's results. I actually quite like this, that you don't need to make sacrifices for the team. You just have to do your best and get the best score here. It's fine to lose four and a half. It's a long tournament. You go on, you don't need to go crazy and recover the point immediately. You just play according to the game, which I think is nice. Of course, I'm very proud to be captain of my team. Well, I'm basically the face of the men team here. And of course, I will be very proud if you can win. If we lose, it's probably not as pleasant, but I'm going to be optimistic. And I'm happy with it. It's a nice honor. I'm very thankful to the organizer who invited me and put me in this place. It's an interesting experiment. Somehow you can sort of have an opinion of whether the rating system is fair. If there are some kind of flaws in the rating system. If, well, I think we will never be able to find out exactly are men or women stronger. Generally speaking, I think that's a very, very hard question. And well, I think it's a format that can be very successful and can can be continued in the future. I think there will be a lot of interest, both from the general public and from the chess enthusiasts. The games are going to be hard fought, I believe. The matchup is very close. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the results. It's a pretty, pretty unclear situation. And I think everybody will be happy to follow. The result is a question are women or men stronger? And I think it's a very individual answer. Which men and which women? And I'm not sure what's going to happen, who's going to win. It's just a personal opinion of mine. Yes, there has been some research and some ideas on the subject of whether the opponent sex can influence player decisions. Somehow they say that men tend to be a little more aggressive against women. And we all tend to think that women are very aggressive in general. I'm really not sure, I don't know. Who's going to win this tournament? The men, for sure. But it's not because I actually believe it, it's because it's my job to be supporting my team. And I think we have a decent opportunity to win the tournament. And I think our focus should be to do our best. And OK, so let's go men.