Best 681 quotes in «chess quotes» category

The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.

The attack is that process by means of which you remove obstructions.

The battle for the ultimate truth will never be won. And that's why chess is so fascinating.

The beauty of a game of chess is usually assessed according to the sacrifices it contains.

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

The best reason to abolish it, in my opinion, is that everyone should deal with his time in the best way; there is no good reason why you should get half a minute extra with each move, except that it's a bit easier for the arbiter.

The best tournament that I have ever played in was in 1950. It was great - a waiter came to you during the game, and you could order anything you wanted to drink (even some vodka, if you liked). Pity, there are no longer tournaments organized in this manner.

The best way to learn endings, as well as openings, is from the games of the masters.

The boy (then a 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov)doesn't have a clue about Chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession

The business of the endgame is maneuvring to control critical squares, advancing or blockading passed pawns, preparing a breakthrough by the king, or exploiting the subtle superiority of one piece over another.

The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.

The concept of 'talent' is formed under completely abstract criteria, having nothing in common with reality. But the reality is such that I don't understand chess as a whole. But then again no one understands chess in its entirety. Perhaps talent is something else, in chess it is conditionality.

The consumer game is tougher than pro football and more conniving than chess. One side [industry] invents the rules and the other side [consumers] is left to guess what they are.

The essence of Capablanca's greatness is his rare talent for avoiding all that can complicate or confuse the conflict.

The endgame is an arena in which miraculous escapes are not uncommon.

The essential disadvantage of the isolated pawn ... lies not in the pawn itself, but in the square in front of the pawn.

The first essential for an attack is the will to attack.

The fact that a knight is temporarily on the edge of the board is of no great significance.

The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant coaches.

The game of chess is the most fascinating and intellectual pastime which the wisdom of antiquity has bequeathed to us.

The future belongs to he who has the bishops.

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

The idea comes before the logical argument.

The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess.

The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.

...the initial position is decisive Zugzwang.

The isolated Pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard

The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism.

The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It's not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it's deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

The laws of chess are as beautiful as those governing the universe - and as deadly.

The National League game is chess; The American League is checkers.

The main Objective of any operation in an open file is the eventual Occupation of the seventh or eighth Rank.

The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit. In the great chess board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it

The middlegame I repeat is chess itself, chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc.

The most powerful weapon in Chess is to have the next move

The Nanjing games are homework by Garry Kasparov and me, [...] Today's game was provided by Garry.

The only positive contribution to chess from Fischer in the last 20 years.

The pawn is the soul of chess.

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.

The only thing Chess players have in common is Chess.

Theory regards this opening as incorrect, but it is impossible to agree with this. Out of the five tournament games played by me with the King's Gambit, I have won all five.

The pitcher setting up the batter. It's chess, and you play with it.

The placing of the centre pawns determines the "topography" of a game of chess.

The pupil wants not so much to learn, as to learn how to learn.

The power of hanging Pawns is based precisely in their Mobility, in their Ability to create acute situations instantly.

The proponents of Steinitz' theory - Tarrasch and his supporters - tried to express Steinitz' teaching in the form of laconic rules, and as often happens in such cases, they went too far. The laconic tended to become dogmatic, and chess began to lose its freshness, originality and charm.

The preparation for active rook play entails what is called the opening of lines, which largely depends on pawn play, especially on the proper use of levers.

The public must come to see that chess is a violent sport. Chess is mental torture.

The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's brain.