‘As a chess champion, people must make a lot of assumptions about you.’

YangFan Zhou, International Chess Master and Britain’s top U21 player, nods in agreement.

‘What’s surprising about you?’

‘A lot of people think that if you are good at chess, then you’re like a super genius. I’m not so sure how much translates into real life. It can be useful but I can never remember where I parked my bike, even though I can easily recall all these chess strategies and ideas.’

I laugh. It’s funny how people do that all the time. I must admit that there have been traces of similar assumptions at the back of my head before meeting him. But once we start chatting, I learn that the chess champion is also a basketball player who thinks John’s is a maze and wants to hear me play the violin. In short, he’s a witty, amicable ‘guy-on-campus’.

This easygoing side juxtaposes very well with the winner attitude that his talents and background implicate.

‘I was born in England but my parents are quite Chinese. They have really high expectations of me, “you have to be no.1” and stuff like that. I think that worked out pretty well for me actually, because they were pushing me all the time, mainly my dad, at the beginning, even though my dad didn’t know a thing about chess. At the beginning, my dad taught me chess with Chinese chess rules, so I didn’t even learn the rules properly the first time.(laughs)’

Despite having been taught the wrong set of rules, Yangfan’s talents were quickly noticed by his coach, who encouraged him very early on to participate in tournaments. One of his first tournaments was the British junior championships. With 99.9% talent and 0.1% luck, he got a title, made a friend, and developed a lifelong passion.

‘In that tournament, the Indians wrecked everybody. They didn’t go to school and trained in chess all day. Some of them came from poor backgrounds so not winning was not an option. Whereas for me if I didn’t do well I could just sit at home and play video games. In that year, they’d won in all the age groups of the tournament except for the under 8s. At the time, I was 7 and I went up against a 6 year old Indian prodigy in one of the last rounds. I played quite well and got a good position against him. And then he started to get low on time, so he started playing quickly. Because I was inexperienced, I started playing quickly as well. Since I hadn’t had as much training as he had, I couldn’t play as well quickly, so I started playing bad moves, dropping pieces left and right. But in the end he lost on time! I won my other games and became British U8 Champion. It was pretty big. That kid is now a Grand Master and a very good friend of mine. I still tease him about that match.’

So instead of relaxing at home, what exactly has Yangfan been pitted against in his training? Practicing a special skill is never easy. Even the rarest geniuses find something difficult about what they do.

‘The toughest thing about chess is concentration. I have a really memorable game against a Latvian player at the European Youth Chess Championships. I had a really nice solution planned out and it was going to be perfect. I’d been winning against him for the last 5 hours, but he set a trap right at the very end. One lapse of concentration, and I lost. Chess is not like tennis where if you lose a point the match goes on. You can make 100 great moves, but one bad move and bam! You’re beaten.’

It was very obvious from the start that Yangfan was very specific when it came to a chess player’s nationality. It was as if he’d never forget which country that player came from. Well, of course. Chess is in its own way a means of bonding that goes beyond cultural boundaries and players are proud of that.

‘Chinese chess style is really aggressive. Chinese players are getting really good now. They won the Chess Olympiad, which is the biggest team event in the world. But there is a lot less chess history in China, so they don’t have proper “chess schools”, making them less grounded strategically, but Chinese players are really, really good at calculation. They are very tough psychologically as well.

In Europe, if a guy faces a Grand Master, he’d be like, “Darn, my opponent is a monster”. Even before the game starts he’d probably think, “Oh, this is going to be really hard. I want to hold a draw” or something. But if it’s a Chinese player, he just doesn’t give a crap. He’ll be against the Grand Master and still play all these aggressive moves. And sometimes, they just end up smashing the favourite. It’s interesting.

The Russian school of style is very logical and knowledge-based. They can deliver very methodical deaths — it’s not easy to beat Russian masters! English people are lazy, right? We don’t have as much knowledge and spend less time training, but one thing English players are really good at is creativity. So they don’t know all these principles, but it means that they can come up with interesting ideas.’

It is perfect to talk about chess with Yangfan. His passion for it is authentic, pure and infectious. I come away feeling ready to dive into passions of my own.