Chess Players Quotes - Page 2

• You can't overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life.

  Garry Kasparov

  Strong, Believe, Winning

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.81, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight

  Jose Raul Capablanca

  Book, Player, Glasses

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• Chess is like a language, the top players are very fluent at it. Talent can be developed scientifically but you have to find first what you are good at.

  Viswanathan Anand

  Player, Chess, Firsts

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• This is the essential element that cannot be measured by any analysis or device, and I believe it's at the heart of success in all things: the power of intuition and the ability to harness and use it like a master.

  Garry Kasparov

  Success, Believe, Heart

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• One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.

  Garry Kasparov

  Moving, Doe, Opponents

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• I claim that nothing else is so effective in encouraging the growth of chess strength as such independent analysis, both of the games of the great players and your own.

  Mikhail Botvinnik

  Independent, Player, Games

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• It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well

  Siegbert Tarrasch

  Success, Player, Playing Chess

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• I am the best player in the world, and I am here to prove it.

  Bobby Fischer

  Player, Chess Game, World

  "Chess Digest Magazine", Volume 4, 1971.

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• Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack

  Wilhelm Steinitz

  Player, Chess, Strategy

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• The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind

  Emanuel Lasker

  Moving, Player, Thinking

  Emanuel Lasker (1960). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.167, Courier Corporation

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• When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties - before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since.

  Bobby Fischer

  Player, People, Manhattan

  Radio Interview, www.geocities.jp. October 16, 2006.

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• One interesting indication of Capablanca's greatness is that to non-chess players his name was better known than the names of all other chess masters together! This was due partly to his engaging personality and distinguished appearance: he was one of those exceptional people who at once stand out in a crowd.

  Fred Reinfeld

  Player, Greatness, Names

  Fred Reinfeld (2012). “The Immortal Games of Capablanca”, p.2, Courier Corporation

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• Most chess players know, thanks to the study of master games, that two bishops are stronger than two knights or than bishop and knight, though very few know the reason for this advantage and how to turn it to account.

  Richard Reti

  Player, Knights, Games

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• Could we look into the head of a Chess player, we should see there a whole world of feelings, images, ideas, emotion and passion

  Alfred Binet

  Passion, Player, Ideas

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• I believe every chess player senses beauty, when he succeeds in creating situations, which contradict the expectations and the rules, and he succeeds in mastering this situation.

  Vladimir Kramnik

  Believe, Player, Creating

  "Art, Chess, Beauty and Depth". Interview with Ugo Dossi, en.chessbase.com. December 21, 2005.

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• Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Lying, Science, Math

  Orthodoxy ch. 2 (1908)

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• Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Angel, Player, Discipline

  Jorge Luis Borges (1962). “Ficciones”, p.34, Grove Press

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• I was very lucky that while I was a chess player in a country where chess was not a big deal, I happened to be in the one city where there was a sprouting chess team: Chennai.

  Viswanathan Anand

  Country, Team, Player

  "Q&A: Inside the Mind of the World’s Top Chess Player". Interview with Aditi Malhotra, blogs.wsj.com. April 3, 2013.

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• But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Success, Player, Men

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Chess players, people who travel all over the world, should be trusted or else not sent anywhere at all. Why are these four people (Antoshion and three other official 'minders') sent along to supervise us? With their meagre experience, all that thay did was interfere, more than ever before. And when they were needed, they weren't to be found.

  Viktor Korchnoi

  Player, People, Three

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• Chess has given me a lot more than I could ask for. I have been able to feel special, travel the world and do what I truly enjoy. Moreover, chess players love being their own boss and hate having to wake up early!

  Viswanathan Anand

  Hate, Player, Up Early

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• Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have a unique ability of taking in a lot of information and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are the key attributes.

  Viswanathan Anand

  Sports, Memories, Unique

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• Computers have proved to be formidable chess players. In fact, they've beaten our top human chess champions.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Player, Champion, Chess

  "How Does the Brain Work?". "NOVA scienceNOW", www.pbs.org. September 14, 2011.

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• Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation.

  Boris Spassky

  Sacrifice, Player, Important

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• Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.

  William Golding

  Player, Decision, Playing Chess

  William Golding (2016). “Lord of the Flies: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.89, Penguin

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