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The crowd could be tough to deal with at times, but I learned to use them and the way they behaved towards me as strong motivation.
Stephen Hendry
I got into poker in the early 2000s. In snooker tournaments, you are always looking for things to pass the time between matches, so we'd play together, or I would play online.
People often write to me, addressing the envelope, 'Stephen Hendry, Snooker Player' or 'Stephen Hendry, Scotland', and it reaches me.
In both snooker and poker, you have to play your best under pressure; I was always able to do that. I don't think it is something you can teach. Your mental strength, your confidence, your self-belief has got to be very strong. That is the common denominator.
You get better as the rounds go on.
The most I ever played was 12 or 13 tournaments. Now they're talking about almost 20, and it's all year round, playing through the summer as well.
When I'm practising on my own, my game feels great, but there's a big difference between practising on your own and playing against people.
For me, winning was 'job done.' I would practise the day after.
These days, you can watch many different sports; you are saturated with it 24 hours a day. And young boys all want to be footballers because you don't even need to be that good, and you can still earn £100,000 a week.
I always liked to take on the middle pockets. They're much harder.
In the '90s, I never socialised with other players.
I love playing in China. The crowds here value success more than British people seem to.
I like cookery programmes: Anthony Bourdain going around the world eating stuff; Rick Stein - he's another favourite.
I have always really loved clothes, although I am glad to say that my tastes have mellowed somewhat over the years. When I first played professionally and started to earn big money, almost everything I bought was by Versace.
One of my biggest sponsors is based in China, and I probably spend as much time there as I do in the U.K. Over the years, I have really grown to love it, but the first time I went was a different story.
Larry David, he's my hero. I want to be him - I want to act like him - everything.
By 2012, my game was shot. You're sitting on your chair watching players' leagues below you play shots you can't. That destroyed me.
There are players out there who want to dominate and keep their opponent sitting down. They want to make centuries and win frames at a single visit, and I like to see that.
My form's good in practice, but that doesn't count for anything, really.
If I have regrets, it's around my sons. There is no doubt they were affected by the divorce - Carter more than Blaine, I think.
When I was playing Jimmy White in those finals, I could tell when he was under pressure.
I never dreamed, when I received a small table for a Christmas present from my parents, I would have the career that I did or achieve so much.
It's nice to have genuine appreciation for what you've achieved in the game. You don't often get it in Britain.
Ever since I was a kid, I'd imagine that I was making a break to win the world championship.
In the late '80s and early '90s, I took success for granted, winning four or five tournaments a year. I just expected to win them.
I am not a superstar in Britain.
If I'm going to play, I'm going to have to give it 100%, which means I'm going to have to play in all of the tournaments that I don't like.
It's always been my weakness that my concentration tends to go when I get into scrappy frames.
I liked 'The Wire.'
I enjoy commentating on the big tournaments for the BBC, the occasional exhibition match, and my business interests.
I remember far more shots that cost me matches than the ones that won me matches. That is maybe the way you think if you are someone who has won a lot of tournaments and had a successful career.
I could have had eight or nine world titles at least, and you do think about that at times.
Going into a tournament with 100 per cent belief you will win it - that's how I've always enjoyed snooker.
I don't think about technique. I just pot the balls.
It would break my heart to lose playing safe.
The thing is, with century breaks, maximums, ranking tournaments, these sorts of things are automatically going to be broken: it's not if but when.
I grew up Dalgety Bay, in the Kingdom of Fife, in a 1970s bungalow. We moved there when I was nine and stayed for about six years.
I cannot see a situation when I won't feel pressure to play well and win.
I think the word 'yips' trivialises it; it is completely debilitating, like a cancer spreading through your game and just destroying it.
However much I try, I can't shake off the effects of the yips.
By the age of 14, I had stopped doing homework and stopped studying - as soon as I had any spare time, I was up to the local snooker club. I was fortunate my parents never forced me to stop playing snooker and told me to carry on at school. Nowadays, that probably isn't the best advice. I basically had nothing else to fall back on.
There are times when there's been some discontent and muttered threats from audience members. I take no notice, and in any case, I always have John Carroll around to deflect unpleasantness.
When you have a big lead, you relax and don't concentrate as much.
I always loved playing in front of big audiences; now I'm jittery if one person is in the room watching me.
Judd Trump's bedrock of his game is potting good long pots, getting in, creating a chance, and winning frames at one visit.
I'm not the player I was.
The quarter finals is always an exciting round because you know you're one match away from that one table situation: where the magic really starts to happen at the Crucible and where it starts to come into its own.
I still enjoy a wee game of poker now and then, but I'm not very good, and being Scottish, I don't like to lose that much money!
I can't overstate the part the yips played in bringing my career to a close.
Ronnie O'Sullivan is the only player in history to be dominant and popular at the same time.
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