"I don't mind losing. I'm not worried about it."
At the age of 48, and with three world titles to his name, it's probably fair to say Mark Williams feels he has nothing more to prove.
In fairness, he's probably right.
It's a drizzly Friday afternoon in Sheffield, and the Crucible Theatre is alive with activity. Snooker's top names are working a room filled with journalists from all over the world, each one keen to mine a soundbite they can use to build up what many consider to be snooker's granddaddy of them all.
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You can just make out some of the questions drifting around the room. 'How do you feel about this tournament?', 'Is it good to be back at the Crucible?', 'What time is the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield and what TV channel is it on?'
As he leans back in his chair, the man known as the 'Welsh Potting Machine' isn't so much playing the part of elite-level athlete, but instead cuts the figure of a man running late for a lunch date.
His phone is intermittently buzzing, perhaps reminding him of more important commitments. They go unanswered. Indeed, he's friendly and polite, but it's impossible not to notice he's clearly not, well, bothered, by it all.
"I don't really do preparations," he begins. "I've not really done any more practice for this than I do for any other tournament. I haven't played that much. I don't play that much nowadays anyway."
After a disappointing exit at the Welsh Open earlier this year, Williams hinted he was dangerously close to showing some form of professional preparation. Having found himself flagging during a gruelling evening session with fellow Welshman Jak Jones, Williams admitted it was maybe time to change his lifestyle and get in shape.
"No, it's not happened yet," he says when quizzed on it. "Next season! I've put on half a stone since I said that. I do like my food."
To seemingly be so blasé about passing up the opportunity to make an improvement to your game will strike many as being a little odd.
But, in his line of work, Williams argues a determination to win is far more valuable than a determination to avoid the perceived shame of defeat.
"This is a game where (Ronnie) O'Sullivan is the best player we've ever had and he's lost more games than he's won," he explains. "He's won something like 30-odd ranking tournaments in his career. That's something like one ranking tournament a year.
"So I don't dwell on losing. I never have. I've never worried about it. It's something you can't control. Once you've lost that's it. There's nothing you can do about it. If you dwelled on it, it would drive you nuts.
"I don't want people to think 'Oh he cares. He's just lying,' I've never said I don't care. Of course I care. When I'm out there I'm probably one of the most fearsome competitors anyone will play against.
"But when I lose. That's it then. I'm not worried about it.
"If I go out there and lose 10-0 to Jimmy Robertson on Sunday, who cares? I don't. Great. Well played Jimmy. If you beat me 10-0 you're going to have to play well. Well done.
"I'll get stick off my mates, but who cares? I mean I don't wanna go out there and lose.
"I don't know if I'm lucky, but I never really feel that much nerves or shake or anything like that. I don't know why.
"If I'm playing cards in a casino a bit later with you and there's 300 quid in the pot and I open up a pair of aces. I can't stop my heart pounding like you wouldn't believe, and my hands start sweating. I'm just thinking 'keep calm, keep calm', and then you're playing out there for tens of thousands, nothing happens.
"I've always been like that."
The mention of number one Ronnie O'Sullivan feels especially appropriate as the meeting between the pair in the semi-final of the Masters was arguably one of sweetest victories of the Welshman's career.
Williams stormed back from a three-frame deficit to end an eight-year wait for victory over his long-time nemesis with a stunning 6-5 victory.
Suddenly Williams' attitude to the game starts to make a little more sense. If you don't show any interest in letting the pressure get to you, it's actually possible to produce something truly special.
The pair could well meet again very soon given they're on the same side of the draw for this year's tournament in Sheffield.
O'Sullivan has frequently been a big critic of the Crucible, and Williams admits he's not a massive fan either, although age has perhaps mellowed him out a little.
"In fairness, when it goes to the one-table set-up, it's the best venue you'll ever play in," he said. "But with two tables, it's too small and it's too cramped.
"But it's funny, the older I'm getting and the more I come back here, I've sort of changed my mind and started to think that maybe it should stay here because of all the history that it's got here.
"But there's nothing like it in the world with the two tables. It's so cramped.
"Maybe that's what makes it so iconic. The people who come here to watch it seem to love it because they're so close to the table they can almost touch the players. Perhaps I didn't realise before that it's the people who come and watch who are the most important.
"So perhaps I'm wrong and it should stay here."
Despite his conflicting feelings on the Crucible and his apparent steadfast indifference to the possibility of losing, it would be foolish to underestimate how much winning on this stage means to him. The wild celebrations that broke out on the back of his victory here in 2018 were the stuff of Crucible legend.
First, Williams duly delivered on a previous pledge to get naked if he claimed a third world title of his career, conducting his press duties afterwards with nothing but a towel to preserve his modesty.
"I'll never forget it," he recalls. "I was in the dressing room and I came in and I was called for the press conference, and just thought 'Here we go'. So I took all my clothes off and everything."
Fans were left in stitches. Snooker chief Barry Hearn? Not so much.
"He burst through the door and was just saying 'there are kids in there, you can't do it. You've got to wear this towel'," he said.
"He pops up with this BetFred towel. I told him I didn't want it. So I was walking down with my hands covering, walking down, and he was insisting. He must have already had it planned, I don't know.
"I've still got the towel in my house!"
The boozy, kebab-fuelled night that followed makes one's liver ache with sympathy pains, but the hilarious live tweeting of the all-night bender was arguably just as gripping and entertaining as any match he's played.
But as bad as the hangover the following morning must have been, surely nothing will have topped the beer fear that followed following his triumph in 2003.
After making the questionable decision to take the trophy with him on a celebratory night out back in Cwm, Williams woke up the following morning with the sport's most famous trophy unaccounted for.
"I absolutely filled it up," he said. "Drunk out of it. Everything.
"I came home then. I woke up and I'd lost the trophy. I had no idea where it was. So, I phoned up World Snooker saying 'Look... I think I've lost the trophy'.
"They said I'd have to pay £30,000 in insurance, and I was just thinking 'what am I going to do?'
"I even went to the police station to see if anyone had handed it in. I honestly just couldn't remember what I'd done with it.
"Then as it happened, about 9 o'clock at night, my next door neighbour came in. With the trophy.
"I just said 'Jesus Christ, what a lifesaver! Where'd you get that from?'
"He said, 'Well I woke up about 6am to go to work and this trophy was just on the wall outside the house.
"I didn't want to wake you up, so I thought I'd put it in my car and give it back when I've finished my shift."
As it turns out, Williams had left one of the most famous trophies in sport on the wall of his driveway. Such anecdotes may well give the suits a bit of a heart attack, but clearly do little to harm his popularity with the paying public, whose adoration has helped elevate him to the status of national treasure.
The spotlight has even yielded a bit of acting work.
"I did a clip on The Tuckers for the fella Steve Speirs and he said he might get me a bigger role in some other thing he's looking at," he added.
"So, if it comes along I'll do it!"
The alternative careers don't end there. Williams has also moved into pool, an opportunity he says he wants to explore further, and also helped launch a spray for cleaning snooker balls that saw him utter the interesting promo line “If you have got a problem with greasy balls, buy my cleaner.”
But the love for snooker is clearly still as strong as ever, with Williams now looking to bestow his wisdom onto the next generation.
Williams has formed a close friendship with protégé Jackson Page, and admits he feels more emotionally invested in the 21-year-old's results than his own.
Page unfortunately fell at the last hurdle in terms of qualifying for this year's tournament, but Williams has nevertheless tipped him for big things.
"He is like my fourth son," he said. "He comes to the house, plays pool with my boys up the house. When I do go up the club, and it's not that often, I practice with him only really.
"When he lost the last qualifier here, I was pretty gutted. More gutted than any match I've ever lost because when you want to see someone win and they lose it's not nice. It's not a nice feeling. I'm glad I don't get those feelings myself or else it would drive me up the wall.
"He's definitely got the potential to do well. Out of all the youngsters, he's by far the best one to watch. You can tell the ones who have had coaching and the ones who haven't had much coaching.
"He's just so natural and he's brilliant to watch and that's what we've been missing, some youngsters to come through and be good to watch and make 100 breaks in a few minutes, and also win matches.
"He has the potential to fill that gap."
In terms of his own career, having briefly considered retirement in 2015, it's clear Williams has little intention of taking his foot off the gas - for the time being anyway.
"I've made a decision that I'm never retiring," he said. "Ever. Until I drop off the tour, I'm still playing.
"I've never really had aims in my career. Obviously you always dream of being a world champion and number one, but the only aim I've got is to see if I can still get into the top 16 when I'm 50.
"I think if I can do that, it will be an amazing achievement for me.
"In a lot of sports, it's just not heard of. Whether or not I can do it, I don't know.
"My game's feeling pretty good at the moment. I'm better than what I thought I would be at my stage. So we'll see."
Of course, the real question is whether there will be any wild celebrations this time around should he go all the way again.
"It won't be happening again. Bloody hell. I should have kept my mouth shut," he insists when remembering his infamous pledge.
"No. If I could guarantee that I'll win the world world title, I'd run down that street outside naked. But no, I'm not going to be doing anything stupid."
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