Even as a child winning mind games meant a lot to the 17-year-old Laura Unuk. Her love for chess has now brought her two world champion titles. Last week in Montevideo she staged a champions' dance and after being defeated in the 2nd round she went on to win all of the following nine games.

"I was extremely happy. It's indescribable to become world champion twice. I received many text messages with people congratulating me, they all said they followed my chess matches and cheered me on," the chess player described the celebration.

You must have analyzed your defeat in the 2nd round. Were you angry?
"I've had moments in my career when I would lose and be so angry, that I would play the next match full of anger attacking my opponent in order to check-mate her as soon as possible. But at this championship I analyzed every match and I only made one mini-mistake during my second game of chess, which my opponent noticed and took advantage of. I accepted the defeat and went into my next match with the aim of beating all the rest of my opponents. There was no anger, because I knew I did nothing wrong."

How far are you from becoming a chess grandmaster?
"I've had two grandmaster balls, I received my second one now in Uruguay, and I now lack one more. I have the rating and enough points. So what I now lack is only one more good tournament. This can happen next month already. I would like to become a member of that elite (Slovenian female chess grandmasters are Darja Kapš, Jana Krivec and Ana Srebrnič)."

Do you often play against the computer?
"I rather play chess on the Internet against real players. The computer is much better, it can calculate up to 40 moves in advance, while a human can calculate only 10. I don't want to be losing all the time, but sometimes it's nevertheless good to play against the computer."