Hello everyone, I'm Ben Johnson, and this is the perpetual chess podcast.

On perpetual chess, I have weekly conversations with the chess world's best players,

promoters, and educators about their lives, careers, current projects, and best practices.

For more information, go to perpetual chesspod.com.

Okay, I am here with International Master Michael Rahal from Barcelona.

Michael, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for being.

It's a pleasure.

So you are a very good chess player and a chess teacher, and I've had some listeners from Barcelona, yourself included, who've been reaching out to me.

And I've mentioned before I'm a huge fan of the city.

I'm not alone in that.

So it'll be good to hear the perspective of chess in Barcelona and chess in Spain and the general culture over in your neck of the woods.

Yeah, I'm very happy to be on your show, Ben.

I've listened to practically all the shows before.

And actually, congratulations because they're really good and you're a very good interview.

So I'm happy to be here and hope to give your listeners some insight

in how chess works here in Spain.

Okay, well, thanks for the kind words.

And we were just talking offline.

You actually were born in England, but made your way to Spain.

So you moved at 12.

Were you already a chess player at that point?

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