12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov described learning to handle losses in an interview on the Russian-language YouTube channel “Voices of the Winners” on January 19. Karpov cited an instructive piece of advice his father gave him at the age of five.

Anatoly Karpov

Anatoly Karpov

12th World Champion

“I learned to cope with defeats as a child, my father helped me probably. We played training games when I was five or six years old.

At five, when losing, I would still cry. At some point, my father told me: “Well, if you cry one more time, I won’t play with you anymore”. After these words I stopped crying …and I actually stopped losing.”

Russian and former Soviet GM Anatoly Karpov became the 12th World Champion in 1975 after Bobby Fischer forfeited the match. He held the World Title or was a Championship Contender for 25 consecutive years from 1974 to 1998.

Credit: Lennart Ootes/FIDE