Chess Quotes - Page 23

• If once a man delays castling and his king remains in the center, files will open up against him, bishops sweep the board, rooks will dominate the seventh rank, and pawns turn into queens.

  Irving Chernev

  Queens, Kings, Men

  Irving Chernev (2014). “The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played: 62 masterly games of chess strategy”, p.110, Pavilion Books

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• Go through detailed variations in your own time, think in a general way about the position in the opponent's time and you will soon find that you get into time trouble less often, that your games have more content to them, and that their general standard rises.

  Alexander Kotov

  Time, Thinking, Games

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• Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego.

  Bobby Fischer

  Ego, Alter Ego, Hard

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• Chess is the only game greater than its players.

  Tim Rice

  Player, Games, Greater

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• Chess cannot be taught. Chess can only be learned.

  Mikhail Botvinnik

  Taught

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• Quiet moves often make a stronger impression than a wild combination with heavy sacrifices.

  Mikhail Tal

  Moving, Sacrifice, Stronger

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• The masters and grandmasters can be divided into three groups - the inveterate time trouble merchants, those who sometimes get into trouble, and those for whom the phenomenon is a very rare occurence.

  Alexander Kotov

  Time, Groups, Three

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• Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win.

  Robert Grudin

  Powerful, Moving, Winning

  Robert Grudin (1997). “Time and the Art of Living”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I consider myself to be a genius who happens to play chess.

  Bobby Fischer

  Play, Genius, Happens

  "Bobby Fischer: from prodigy to pariah" by Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. May 14, 2011.

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• Chess is eminently and emphatically the philospher's game.

  Paul Morphy

  Games

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• I soon realized that it is not enough for a master simply to analyse variations scrupulously just like an accountant. He must learn to work out which particular moves he should consider and then examine just as many variations as necessary - no more and no less.

  Alexander Kotov

  Moving, Learning, Work Out

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• On the whole, the life of a chess professional is not as easy as it appears at first sight. One needs to devote some ten hours a day to chess and to everything connected with it - physical and psycholgical preparation.

  Vladimir Kramnik

  Practice, Sight, Preparation

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• An amusing fact: as far as I can recall, when playing the Ruy Lopez I have not yet once in my life had to face the Marshall Attack!

  Anatoly Karpov

  Faces, Facts, Amusing

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• A good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced hat he has lost because of a mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of his game, but forgets that there were also mistakes at ever step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect. The mistake he pays attention to is conspicuous only because his opponent took advantage of it.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Mistake, Moving, Player

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• To play with correctness and skill the ends of games, is an important but a very rare accomplishment, expect among the magnates of the game.

  Howard Staunton

  Games, Play, Skills

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• Chess is something more than a game. It is an intellectual diversion which has certain artistic qualities and many scientific elements.

  Jose Raul Capablanca

  Games, Intellectual, Quality

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• Sultan Khan had become champion of India at Indian chess and he learned the rules of our form of chess at a later date. The fact that even under such conditions he succeeded in becoming champion reveals a genius for chess which is nothing short of extraordinary.

  Jose Raul Capablanca

  Champion, India, Genius

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• The fact that a player is very short of time is to my mind, as little to be considered as an excuse as, for instance, the statement of the law-breaker that he was drunk at the time he committed the crime.

  Alexander Alekhine

  Time, Player, Law

  Chess Life, Volume 16-18, p. 113, 1961.

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• Play on both sides of the board is my favourite strategy.

  Alexander Alekhine

  Play, Boards, Sides

  Alexander Alekhine (1955). “My best games of chess, 1924-1937”

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• Under no circumstances should you play fast if you have a winning position. Forget the clock, use all your time and make good moves.

  Pal Benko

  Time, Moving, Winning

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• Like the alchemist of old, for ever searching for the philosopher's stone, the analyst to-day never stops looking for stronger moves to prevent the defender from establishing equality.

  Savielly Tartakower

  Moving, Alchemist, Stronger

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• I believe in magic ... There is magic in the creative faculty such as great poets and philosophers conspicuously possess, and equally in the creative chessmaster.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Beauty, Believe, Creative

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• No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art, if these qualities do not lead to the main goal - the search for truth.

  Vasily Smyslov

  Art, Truth, Games

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• Apart from direct mistakes, there is nothing more ruinous than routine play, the aim of which is mechanical development.

  Alexey Suetin

  Mistake, Play, Routine

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• The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's brain.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Ideas, Brain, Reason

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