Best 681 quotes in «chess quotes» category

Haste, the great enemy.

Haste is never more dangerous than when you feel that victory is in your grasp.

Have you ever seen a chess article without a brilliant example of the author's own play? 'Silly question,' you will say. Quite.

Have you ever seen a monkey examining a watch?

Having spent alarmingly large chunks of my life studying the white side of the Open Sicilian, I find myself asking, why did I bother?

Heaven knows, we all make mistakes. That's life - and chess.

He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's own.

Here are some of the questions and answers to an examination paper in chess that was given some time ago

He who analyses blitz is stupid.

Hold'em is to stud what chess is to checkers.

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

However hopeless the situation appears to be there yet always exists the possibility of putting up a stubborn resistance.

I address these hopes to all young players. It seems to me that they often begin too early the strict life of a professional, without first completing their chess studies. Deficiencies in education and a lack of certain basic knowledge will tell sooner or later; they will bump their head on the ceiling and will no longer be able to climb up to the stars.

I also follow chess on the Internet, where Kasparov's site is very interesting.

I add status to any tournament I attend.

I am convinced, the way one plays chess always reflects the player's personality. If something defines his character, then it will also define his way of playing.

I always urge players to study composed problems and endgames.

I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal person.

I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.

I believe that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands.

I believe that the best style is a universal one, tactical and positional at the same time.

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.

I did not believe I was superior to him. Perhaps the chief reason for his defeat was the overestimation of his own powers arising out of his overwhelming victory in New York, 1927, and his underestimation of mine.

I'd like to go away for six months and learn to kiteboard and windsurf. I love pinochle, I love chess and I love windsurfing.

... I bid farewell to my readers in the hope that they have formed their own opinion as to the meaning of the word "combination".

I can remember times coming home from a chess club at four in the morning when I was half asleep and half dead and forcing myself to pray an hour and study an hour. You know, I was half out of my mind-stoned almost.

I definitely miss the rush from wiping out an opponent.

I detest the endgame. A well-played game should be practically decided in the middlegame.

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

If the defender is forced to give up the center, then every possible attack follows almost of itself.

I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant.

I'd rather have a Pawn than a finger

If chess is a vast jungle, computers are the chainsaws in a giant environmentally insensitive logging company.

If the kids get a good grasp of what the main lessons are for chess after two or three years of staying with the game, then you've given them brain food and you've given them a skill that can last them a lifetime.

I don't know if I went to the gym, [but] Woody [Harrelson] was 24, and at that point I was like 37, which is when you realize you're no longer 24. So in walked Woody, who was instantly great, but offstage, it was [all] testosterone. We'll arm-wrestle. I still have, like, tendinitis in my elbow. Woody cleaned everybody's clock in everything. Then we got less physical and went to chess, and he whipped our asses with chess.

I dropped the King's Indian in 1997 after one too many bad experiences against Kramnik.

If the media didn't know I played chess, there'd be no angle on me at all.

If trading is like chess, then macro is like three-dimensional chess.

If you don't know what to play, play nothing.

If you are going to make your mark among masters, you have to work far harder and more intensively, or, to put it more exactly, the work is far more complex than that needed to gain the title of Master.

If you are weak in the endgame, you must spend more time analysing studies; in your training games you must aim at transposing to endgames, which will help you to acquire the requisite experience.

If you don't know what to do, find your worst Piece and look for a better Square.

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.

I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.

I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings

I go over many games collections and pick up something from the style of each player.

I guess a certain amount of temperament is expected of Chess geniuses

I had lunch with a chess champion the other day. I knew he was a chess champion because it took him 20 minutes to pass the salt.

I hate anyone who beats me.

I have also heard that GM Oscar Panno said that -whenever you have to make a rook move and both rooks are available for said move- you should evaluate which rook to move and, once you have made up your mind... MOVE THE OTHER ONE!!!