Top 346 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Chess Players - Page 3

Capablanca's phenomenal move-searching algorithm in those early years, when he possessed a wonderful ability for calculating variations very rapidly, made him invincible.

Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.

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.

I have known many chess players, but among them there has been only one genius - Capablanca!

When you see a good move, sit on your hands and see if you can find a better one.

The choice of moves should not be made on an exact verdict of the final position, but on whether or not your position has improved or worsened.

Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one's opponent's wildest dreams will become reality.

I have also known some of the world's finest brains and some of these, though passionately fond of chess, have been pretty poor players. I used to know one of the world's leading mathematicians and whenever we played chess I had to give him the odds of a Queen to make matters more equal, and even then I always won.

... on the right occasion a bold choice of opening can unnerve even the most steely opponent.

Chess is not for the timid.

The idea comes before the logical argument.

In open positions the safety of the King should be the first consideration.

First, how to sac my queen, then rook, then bishop, then knight, then pawns.

Nowadays tournaments are for nurseries. Look at those kiddies.

I have frequently stated that I regard chess as an art form, where creativity prevails over other factors.

Has he some psychological antipathy to realism? I am no psychologist, and cannot say. The fact remains that Euwe commits the most inexplicable mistakes in thoroughly favorable positions, and that this weakness has consistently tarnished his record.

How can I lose to such an idiot?

Chess is more than a game or a mental training. It is a distinct attainment. I have always regarded the playing of chess and the accomplishment of a good game as an art, and something to be admired no less than an artist's canvas or the product of a sculptor's chisel. Chess is a mental diversion rather than a game. It is both artistic and scientific.

When you see a good move, look for a better one.

The best initial move for white is 1. P-K4.

Even in the heat of a middlegame battle the master still has to bear in mind the outlines of a possible future ending.

The first chess book that I read was Dufresne's self-tutor, published with Lasker's Common Sense in Chess as an appendix.

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.

Chess is a good mistress but a bad master.

First and foremost it is essential to understand the essence, the overall idea of any fashionable variation, and only then include it in one's repertoire. Otherwise the tactical trees will conceal from the player the strategic picture of the wood, in which his orientation will most likely be lost.

Chess is a game of understanding and not of memory.

It is a profound mistake to imagine mistake to imagine that the art of combination depends only on natural talent, and that it cannot be learned. Every player knows that all (or almost all) combinations arise from a recollection of familiar elements.

In chess there is a world of intellectual values.

As a chess player one has to be able to control one's feelings, one has to be as cold as a machine.

There's never before been a Chess player with such a thorough knowledge of the intricacies of the game and such an absolutely indomitable will to win. I think Bobby is the greatest player that ever lived

The King plays a most important part in the endgame, and gains in power and activity as the number of pieces on the board diminishes. Acting in eight different directions, he becomes, instead of the weakest piece, one of the most formidable units.

I love chess, but it's the height of decadence.

Once we got going on the Fantagraphics version of Love and Rockets, our encouragement was constant. People wanted us to do more, do more. Thirty years later, here we are.

If you are interested in improving, think of a draw offer as an offer to remain ignorant of what you would have learned in the remainder of the game.

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.

Checkers is for tramps

The fact that the 7 hours time control allows us to play a great deep game is not of great importance for mass-media.

In chess, as in life, opportunity strikes but once.

In short, we can see Karpov as an exploiter of other people’s ideas. His ability to use these ideas is not at issue, but he himself is about as fertile as a woman who has been sterilized is.

In my opinion, the style of a player should not be formed under the influence of any single great master.

Anyone could identify with the human aspect of the characters.

Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic.

The correct way to play chess is to develop each and every piece (chess is a team game!), get your King safely castled, and only then begin more aggressive maneuvers.

A lot of these ideas are built under wrong presumptions which officials have that chess players are lazy bastards whose sole idea is to deceive (the) public and to make short draws and go home. It's not true. It's a lie.

Being Jewish myself, I somehow didn't see the problem: who cares what a mentally ill (but strangely likable) individual says? If he didn't make some money at chess, I could see him becoming a street person, shaking his fists at cars as they passed by his corner of the block. Isn't it preferable to have him in a self-sufficient position rather than as a liability of the state?

The Pawn move is a capital investment. Every one of the forty-eight should, from the beginning, be spent as if it were one of the last forty-eight apprehensive and responsible dollars between yourself and starvation.

And his six pawns were scattered like the ships of the Armada that should have conquered England; the Lord blew, and they were all isolated.

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual ... may well be the chess book of the year... [It] comes close to an ultimate one-volume manual on the endgame.

Fischer prefers to enter Chess history alone

But alas! Like many another consummation devoutly to be wished, the actual performance was a disappointing one.

Of chess it has often been said that life is not long enough for it - but that is the fault of life, not chess.

It's a very special generation, because during our careers the computer entered chess. So we know how to play without computers, which is also important. We can analyse without computers. I am not saying that younger players cannot do this, but we are more in the habit of doing this. That's important to improve your chess understanding.

Do not always be thinking of attack! Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.

It often happens that a player is so fond of his advantageous position that he is reluctant to transpose to a winning endgame.

Just as one's imagination is stirred by a girl's smile, so is one's imagination stirred by the possibilities of chess.

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

Planning anything is hopeless.

My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, for all the science and sport involved in it.

Pawn endings are to Chess what putting is to golf

A knowledge of combinations is the foundation of positional chess.