A Quote by Garry Kasparov

In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America.

Garry Kasparov

Quote Topics

About America Born Capablanca Chess Fact Figures Fischer General Most Puzzling Renowned Something Were

Quote Author

Garry Kasparov
Russian - Celebrity
Born: April 13, 1963

Fischer is an American Chess tragedy on par with Morphy and Pillsbury

Mig Greengard

As with Steinitz, Fischer's genius has often been concealed by controversies away from the board. Like Lasker, Fischer has raised chess to new financial heights despite frequent retreats from serious play. And, like Capablanca, Fischer is recognized by millions of non-players and has won the game many new enthusiasts.

Andrew Soltis

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He [Capablanca] wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

Bobby Fischer

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

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.

Mark Taimanov

Fischer was a good kid but very unsophisticated about anything but chess. It was all chess for him, every waking moment. We'd go down to the Four Continents bookstore and he'd buy any Russian chess material he could get his hands on. He'd learned enough Russian to get the gist of prose and he just absorbed the chess part.

Ronald Gross

Bobby Fischer was hugely important for the American chess community because it put chess on the map - he made it possible for other chess players to make a living.

Liz Garbus

The ideal in chess can only be a collective image, but in my opinion it is Capablanca who most closely approaches this.

Anatoly Karpov

I used to play a lot of chess and competitive chess and study chess and as you get to the grandmasters and learn their styles when you start copying their games like the way they express themselves through... The way Kasparov or Bobby Fischer expresses themselves through a game of chess is it's astonishing. You can show a chess master one of their games and they'll say "Yeah, that is done by that player."

Rainn Wilson

For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology. Capablanca played, relying almost exclusively on his rich intuitive talent. But for the chess struggle nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature, an understanding of the opponent's psychology.