During the realization of most of the interviews in this book I was alsofortunate that most of the top chess players were easy to approach, did nothave any attitude and were usually open to an interview. Most of them, that is.But there were also the real Living Legends. Like Magnus Carlsen (what's in aname?). When Magnus was a rising star in his twenties, I could interview him atWijk aan Zee. But in recent years Carlsen has adopted the habit of only allowinginterview sessions one at a time in Wijk aan Zee to particular journalists. Ihave always thanked him for that. For me, a good interview must happenface-to-face, one-on-one; I want to be able to determine the scenario of theinterview myself, and make adjustments if necessary. The interview with Carlsenin this book is one of those, because at the tournament in Leuven, Belgium, Iwas fortunate enough to catch Carlsen separately.And then there is The Boss - Garry Kasparov himself. I myself will neverforget one particular moment with Kasparov. There was a very pleasantatmosphere in the press room at Wijk aan Zee - was it 1999, 2000 or 2001? Theplayers were sitting around after their games laughing and joking with eachother. There was an exuberant atmosphere. Suddenly, however, all the conversationsfell silent and a deadly hush ensued. How comes? Garry Kasparov, after his longgame, had suddenly entered the press room. In one second it became crystalclear to me: there was Kasparov, and then there were the others. This is atheme that comes up several times in the conversations in this book.Kasparov was a special case, also for journalists. During his pro career,I only had the opportunity to interview Kasparov separately once, coincidentallyduring the Advanced Chess Match against Topalov, which also turns up in the Forewordby the Tata tournament director Jeroen van den Berg. But after his pro career,to my delight, Kasparov suddenly became much more accessible to journalists: hewrote many books, and wanted to put his political fight with Putin in thespotlight. As a result, I was able to ask him, albeit many years later, the keyquestions about his first five-month marathon match with Karpov, questions thathad been on my mind for a long time.