Best 681 quotes in «chess quotes» category

Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.

Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster.

Many Chess players were surprised when after the game, Fischer quietly explained: 'I had already analyzed this possibility' in a position which I thought was not possible to foresee from the opening

Marriage is like a chess match is initiated and the board expands over time until it takes up all of a life.

Mathematics is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst.

Memorization of variations could be even worse than playing in a tournament without looking in the books at all.

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

My coach and my parents both had this relationship to what I was doing, which was allowing me to express myself with chess. And so I could love it. I had a passion for it. I was expressing myself through chess, and I was learning about myself through chess.

My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.

My God, Bobby Fischer plays so simply

My opponent left a glass of whisky 'en prise' and I took it 'en passant'.

My opponent is Short and the match will be short.

My studies with Botvinnik brought me immense benefit, particularly the homework assignments which forced me to refer to chess books and to work independently.

My sister bought me a set at a candy store and taught me the moves.

My style is somewhere between that of Tal and Petrosian

Ninety percent of the book variations have no great value, because either they contain mistakes or they are based on fallacious assumptions; just forget about the openings and spend all that time on the endings.

Never in the history of chess have so many moves been repeated so often so quickly by so many people who didn't really understand them.

Never copy yourself, always copy someone else.

No fool can play chess, and only fools do.

No Chess Grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness

No, no, it is obvious that the ECU should act as a close alliance for the benefit of chess.

No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by many masters, as has Emanuel Lasker.

No one has ever played these endgames with such elegant ease as Capablanca.

Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it's no longer theoretically possible - then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.

Normally we'd draw the curtain here, but I just wanted to see what he'd play next.

Nowadays games immediately appear on the Internet and thus the life of novelties is measured in hours. Modern professionals do not have the right to be forgetful - it is 'life threatening'.

Nowadays there is more dynamism in chess, modern players like to take the initiative. Usually they are poor defenders though.

Nowadays tournaments are for nurseries. Look at those kiddies.

Now I have the pawn and the compensation.

Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it

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

Often, in the Ruy Lopez, one must be patient, wait and carry on a lengthy and wearisome struggle.

Once we have chosen the right formation in the centre we have created opportunities for our pieces and laid the foundation of subsequent victory.

One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess, but one could live in it.

One charming characteristic of many flank attacks I could mention is that they do not very often lead to simplification: if the attack is parried, there usually are still opportunities left for initiating action in another sector.

One can say that in the last decades chess has become more of a sport than of a science. I see it from an artistic point of view.

One does not succeed by sticking to convention.

One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.

One of these modest little moves may be more embarrassing to your opponent than the biggest threat

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

Only play into a variation in which your opponent is strong if you have your own personal novelty ready!

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack

On the whole, the life of a chess professional is not as easy as it appears at first sight. One needs to devote some ten hours a day to chess and to everything connected with it - physical and psycholgical preparation.

Our efforts in chess attain only a hundredth of one percent of their rightful result... Our education, in all domains of endeavour, is frightfully wasteful of time and values.

Pawns are born free, yet they are everywhere in chains

Patience is the most valuable trait of the endgame player.

Pawn endings are to Chess what putting is to golf

Playing black, I put great stake in the Ruy Lopez: I liked it, feel it, and understand it; in matches with Hjartarson and Timman it served me well. - on preparing for World Championship versus Garry Kasparov

People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.

Playing for complications is an extreme measure that a player should adopt only when he cannot find a clear and logical plan.