Teimour Radjabov Interview

At the age of 23 the Azerbaijani GM Teimour Radjabov has qualified as one of the eight world championship candidates that will face off in Russia in May.

Radjabov recently gave an interview to the ExtraTime website in his home country and I am indebted once again to the tireless work of mishanp for providing an English translation at his excellent Chess In Translation website.

It seems likely that Radjabov will face Vladimir Kramnik in the first round of the candidates matches, so it is interesting to hear his opinions on that, as well as Magnus Carlsen's shock decision not to take part.

Brief quotes:

I think that Magnus Carlsen was absolutely right to act as he did.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more changes and they gave me another opponent.

In my opinion chess ratings are less important than the World Championship title.

You can read the full interview here.