Top 11 Quotes & Sayings by Mark Dvoretsky

It is hardly useful if you trustingly play through variation after variation from a book. It is a great deal more useful and more interesting if you take part actively in the analysis, find something yourself, and try to refute some of the author's conclusions.

I feel that it is no less interesting to be a trainer than to play oneself. I even take greater delight in the tournament successes of my lads than I do in my own.

Emotional instability can be one of the factors giving rise to a failure by chess players in important duels. Under the influence of surging emotions (and not necessarily negative ones) we sometimes lose concentration and stop objectively evaluating the events that are taking place on the board.

I do not know to whom the aphorism 'There are no sound studies, only ones that haven't been busted yet' belongs, but it has measure of truth in it.

Black is now in desperate need of a good idea. Or, to put it standard chess notation, +-

Training in analysis (like any other form of chess training) should be treated very seriously.

It is not possible to become a great player without having learned how to analyse deeply and accurately.

As a rule, pawn endings have a forced character, and they can be worked out conclusively.

In positions of strategic manoeuvring (where time is not of decisive importance) seek the worst-placed piece. Activating that piece is often the most reliable way of improving your position as a whole.

Often you will find the opposite situation. The author seems to have interesting ideas, but he is not able to illustrate them with decent examples. If a grandmaster is commenting on one of his own games, then there is usually not any problem: his general thoughts are closely tied up with what is happening on the board. But as soon as he starts writing an article or book on a different theme the difficulties begin, as he may not have suitable material to hand.

It is very important to learn to weigh up objectively (or assess intuitively) the totality of the competitive and psychological factors.