Growing up in Kaunas, Lithuania, in the 1970s, a young boy called Antanas Guoga was learning the intricacies of chess. And learning fast. While most kids were trying to come to terms with basic reading and writing, Guoga was wiping the board with kids twice his age. At the age of seven he enrolled in a special chess school where he discovered his passion for something that was going to form the cornerstone of his life: competition. He loved winning. And he loved playing. Especially when the game, and the competition, was tough.

But life in communist Lithuania was also tough and so, when Antanas was just 13, the Guoga family decided to move to Melbourne, Australia.