Best 681 quotes in «chess quotes» category

It so often happens that, after sacrificing a pawn, a player aims not to obtain the initiative for it, but to regain sacrificed material.

It's quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess.

It's true that in chess as in politics, fund-raising and glad-handing matter.

It was clear to me that the vulnerable point of the American Grandmaster (Bobby Fischer) was in double-edged, hanging, irrational positions, where he often failed to find a win even in a won position

It was Steinitz who was the first to establish the basic principles of general chess strategy. He was a pioneer and one of the most profound researchers into the thruth of the game, which was hidden from his contemporaries.

I’ve seen - both in myself and my competitors - how satisfaction can lead to a lack of vigilance, then to mistakes and missed opportunities.

I was labeled as a tricky player early on and have been regarded as tricky throughout my whole career. It was said that I was able to pull out tricks from nowhere.

I view the director as my boss. I'm the pawn on the chess board. I don't say something to the director easily, because they are my boss.

I won't play with you anymore. You have insulted my friend -when an opponent cursed himself for a blunder

I was going to have to come up with a rank for myself besides Alpha's mate. In the pack, I was just Mercy- but if ten more people called me the Alpha's mate, I was going to hit someone. It sounded like a chess move.

I would never suggest to anyone that they drop school for chess. First of all even if you can make it in chess, your social skills need to be developed there.

I would prefer chess to become part of the Olympic Games. This would also lead to chess become more accepted as a sport in general.

Just reading about the various opinions concerning the conduct of the recent championship matches convinces me that the only thing to which two chessplayers could agree is that a third one is over-rated.

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

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

I would say, you have a unique chance of learning more about the game of chess with your computer than Bobby Fischer, or even myself, could manage throughout our entire lives. What is very important is that you will use this power productively and you will not be hijacked by the computer screen. Always keep your personality intact.

Just as it is wrong to work on chess by studying only the first 10-15 moves, so it is wrong to play one and the same opening system, even though it be rich in variations and nuances.

Lack of proper endgame technique allows many players to escape from lost positions, even without any spectacular play on their part.

Lasker thought that his rationalism rendered him immune from the surprises of chess theory.

Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.

Let the perfectionist play postal.

Like mortars in old war films, they are often ready to destroy the opponent's unsupported defences.

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

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

Kortchnoi's heritage is many-faceted - over the decades he has several times corrected and changed his style. But the main thing has invariably remained his search for chess truth.

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.

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 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.

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

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

My God, Bobby Fischer plays so simply

My opponent is Short and the match will be short.

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

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

My style is somewhere between that of Tal and Petrosian

Never copy yourself, always copy someone else.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

No fool can play chess, and only fools do.

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

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

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.

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.

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