Top 346 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Chess Players

On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player.

I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity the man who has remained ignorant of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make man happy.

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one

Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately

The most powerful weapon in Chess is to have the next move

First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy.

If a good cartoonist can make a living making his comics, he'll continue to do that; the lesser insincere cartoonist that gets a lot of press will fall by the wayside eventually.

The middlegame I repeat is chess itself, chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc.

The scheme of a game is played on positional lines; the decision of it, as a rule, is effected by combinations.

Young players calculate everything, a requirement of their relative inexperience.

In chess, as in life, a man is his own most dangerous opponent.

Every Chess master was once a beginner

The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.

Analysis, if it is really carried out with a complete concentration of his powers, forms and completes a chess player.

Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one knows in advance which half

The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic.

When I am trying to understand the method of winning in the endgame with two bishops against the knight, chess is a science, when I admire a beautiful combination or study, then chess is art, and when I am complicating position in the approaching time trouble of my opponent, then chess is sport.

But you see when I play a game of Bobby, there is no style. Bobby played perfectly. And perfection has no style.

If your opponent cannot do anything active, then don't rush the position; instead you should let him sit there, suffer, and beg you for a draw

If there were a 1:1 ratio of women and men in the chess world I would agree that all tournaments should be integrated. But a lot of women feel alienated at these mixed events, so it's positive to have occasional all women's events.

The preparation for active rook play entails what is called the opening of lines, which largely depends on pawn play, especially on the proper use of levers.

Good positions don't win games, good moves do

The choice of opening, whether to aim for quiet or risky play, depends not only on the style of a player, but also on the disposition with which he sits down at the board.

In the laboratory the gambits all test unfavorably, but the old rule wears well, that all gambits are sound over the board.

When I start to play a game I try to forget about previous games and try to concentrate on this game. This game is now the most important to me. But of course I am not a computer and you cannot simply press a button, delete, and everything you want to forget disappears automatically. But if you want to play well, it's important to concentrate on the now.

I think I can safely conclude that there is not a lot to be said for playing chess while on Valium.

We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for sacrifices is part of a Chessplayer's nature

Even in the King's Gambit ... White is no longer trying to attack at all costs. He has had to adapt his approach and look for moves with a solid positional foundation ... As often as not, his strategy consists of stifling Black's activity and then winning in an endgame thanks to his superior pawn structure.

Knights are cavalry, bishops are archers, rooks are cannons and queens are wizards.

When chess masters err, ordinary wood pushers tend to derive a measure of satisfaction, if not actual glee.

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.

Don't worry about your rating, work on your playing strength and your rating will follow.

Chess is not something that drives people mad; it is something that keeps mad people sane.

If you try to over-control what you think you will achieve, you'll miss what you can actually accomplish.

If we are to elevate the game of chess to a popular sport, grandmasters must become gladiators, otherwise the game will languish on the periphery, a voice crying in the wilderness, condemned to live and die on a cold arctic shore.

When Grand Masters play, they see the logic of their opponent's moves. One's moves may be so powerful that the other may not be able to stop him, but the plan behind the moves will be clear. Not so with Fischer. His moves did not make sense - at least to all the rest of us they didn't. We were playing chess, Fischer was playing something else, call it what you will. Naturally, there would come a time when we finally would understand what those moves had been about. But by then it was too late. We were dead.

He played with enormous energy and great fighting spirit. Offering him a draw was a waste of time. He would decline it politely, but firmly. "No, thank you," he would say and the fight would go on and on and on.

Chess960 is healthy and good for your chess. If you get into it and not just move the pieces to achieve known positions it really improves your chess vision.

Books on the openings abound; nor are works on the end game wanting; but those on the middle game can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Methodical thinking is of more use in Chess than inspiration

The process of rating players can be compared to the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind.

Never play for the win, never play for the draw, just play chess!

Attack! Always Attack!

Only a good bishop can be sacrificed, a bad bishop can only be lost.

It is impossible to ignore a highly important factor of the chess struggle - psychology.

Chess is a natural cerebral high.

In blitz, the Knight is stronger than the Bishop

The pupil wants not so much to learn, as to learn how to learn.

Chess, like love, is infectious at any age.

My favourite victory is when it is not even clear where my opponent made a mistake.

A win gives one a feeling of self-affirmation, and success - a feeling of self-expression, but only a sensible harmonization between these urges can bring really great achievements in chess.

Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all.

The draw by stalemate looks like a spot of discontinuity in the otherwise harmonious universe of values. To save a game by letting yourself be so completely humiliated as not being able to make a move looks rather undeserved.

Possibly, over the course of time, the brain capacity of homo sapiens will have made such great progress, that complications as contained in this game can be fathomed instantly with a shrug and a smile. Then, not only will the game of chess have ceased to exist, but also will the remembrance of frequently missed objectives elicit pity, as a reaction to the shortcomings of a lower organized form of life.

I hate anyone who beats me.

Your only task in the opening is to reach a playable middlegame.

You will win with either color if you are the better player, but it takes longer with Black.

All chess masters can play one game blindfolded.

I was still too weak to understand his chess ideas at that time but I remember being covered in smoke.