To become a professional, you have to train a lot, which I did from a very early age. Of course, it helps if your character is very competitive and you have patience and perseverance.
Being a professional chess player is not very family-friendly and I am away quite often playing tournaments, sometimes for 12 days at a time. I catch up with Gusztav every day on Skype and email but even though I miss them, I don't make a point of ringing the children every night.
Every single person in the profession has an engine as a helper now. The engines contain six or seven million games, searchable by opening move, player, country, time control. That makes it possible to really research your opponent.
We had a happy childhood, our parents were strict but loving, and I was together with my sisters, who were my best friends.
I think Hungarians should be more positive; many complain, but if they go to some countries, in South America, people are so poor, yet they are happy. It starts with you.
Chess demolishes differences. It's a language of different generations.
I met Bobby Fischer in 1993 when he moved to Europe. I have mixed feelings about it. He was an idol, but not a healthy minded man.
Chess can open up a kid's brain, and develop it in a playful creative way. They can learn playfully about creative, strategic, and logical thinking, and quick problem-solving.
On the highest level, of course there's a lot of competitiveness and drive in the players. They really want to win. But it's normal that the players are also just friends. Even very close friends. Or rivals, but in a healthy way.
Being professional means 100% is not enough. Number one, two and three in my life was chess. The reality for women is, when a child comes into the picture, priorities change.
Since retiring from competitive chess, my focus is on education and organising children's tournaments: I make a point of never separating girls and boys, nor awarding special prizes for girls.
I have no problem with other women, but if I had played against ladies there would be a huge gap between the two of us.
From the moment of my birth on 23 July 1976, I became involved f in an educational research project. Even before I came into the world, my parents had already decided: I would be a chess champion.
But in 2002 I had a miscarriage, at 13 weeks. And funnily enough after that I had my best-ever tournament result, in January 2003.
I had some superstitions when I was little. And a winning pen is always a good thing to have.
I started to become internationally successful starting at the age of 9.
I'm convinced that if my goal hadn't been to be in the absolute best category I can, I would not have been able to be for 26 years the number one in the ladies' category.
When the Ladies Chess Club was founded in London in 1895 and the first international women-only competition took place two years later, most clubs and competitions didn't accept women at all.
We had to cope with the media writing things which were not true, which were insulting. At around 13 I decided I was just not going to pay attention.
For me, learning chess was natural; with my sisters around me, I wanted to play.
