Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant.
Suddenly it was obvious to me in my analysis I had missed what Fischer had found with the greatest of ease at the board
Being the undisputed world champion is a relief. We instituted a unified chess title, I am the absolute world champion.
Do you realize Fischer almost never has any bad pieces? He exchanges them, and the bad pieces remain with his opponents
The essential disadvantage of the isolated pawn ... lies not in the pawn itself, but in the square in front of the pawn.
In any match, there are few critical moments where there's no second best decision. The rest of the moves are intuitive.
You can become a big master in chess only if you see your mistakes and short-comings. Exactly the same as in life itself.
Critical thinking is the most important factor with chess. As it is in life, you need to think before you make decisions.
Chess is a game sufficiently rich in meaning that it is easily capable of containing elements of both tragedy and comedy.
The first chess book that I read was Dufresne's self-tutor, published with Lasker's Common Sense in Chess as an appendix.
Chess is a contributor to net human unhappiness, since the pleasure of victory is greatly exceeded by the pain of defeat.
You can't follow or understand the game unless you play chess yourself, unlike poker which you can pick up in five minutes.
We had a happy childhood, our parents were strict but loving, and I was together with my sisters, who were my best friends.
I don't really watch too many movies. I don't have the patience usually to watch one, one and a half or two hours in a row.
Don't worry kids, you'll find work. After all, my machine will need strong chess player-programmers. You will be the first.
When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: 'Well, you laughed when I wrote it down!'
Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head
[Garry] Kasparov and [Anatoly] Karpov have something in common. They both want to become deputies of the Russian State Duma.
Playing for complications is an extreme measure that a player should adopt only when he cannot find a clear and logical plan.
I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want.
The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.
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.
Nowadays there is more dynamism in chess, modern players like to take the initiative. Usually they are poor defenders though.
Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one's opponent's wildest dreams will become reality.
Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.
When you don't know what to play, wait for an idea to come into your opponent's mind. You may be sure that idea will be wrong
After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore - hypocrisy is everywhere.
My most difficult opponent is myself. When I am playing I often involuntarily make a world champion out of a candidate master.
Chess will always be in the doldrums as a spectator sport while a draw is given equal mathematical value as a decisive result.
It often happens that a player is so fond of his advantageous position that he is reluctant to transpose to a winning endgame.
Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation.
Have you ever seen a chess article without a brilliant example of the author's own play? 'Silly question,' you will say. Quite.
A woman can beat any man; it's difficult to imagine another kind of sport where a woman can beat a man. That's why I like chess.
Our mind is all we've got. Not that it won't lead us astray sometimes, but we still have to analyze things out within ourselves.
Teach people to play new chess, right away. Why do you offer them a black and white television set, when there is a set in color?
When I am in form, my style is a little bit stubborn, almost brutal. Sometimes I feel a great spirit of fight which drives me on.
The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do
Of course the sad truth is that if we are not present to the moment, our true love could come and go and we wouldn't even notice.
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.
I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.
What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game
In chess, knowledge is a very transient thing. It changes so fast that even a single mouse-slip sometimes changes the evaluation.
The truth is that my chess development was nothing out of the ordinary, and it proceeded probably at a pace no faster than others.
Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.
I felt that chess... is a science in the form of a game... I consider myself a scientist. I wanted to be treated like a scientist.
The system set up by F.I.D.E. ... Insures that there will always be a Russian world champion... The Russians arranged it that way.
For example, computer defends well, but for humans its is harder to defend than attack, particularly with the modern time control.
I met Bobby Fischer in 1993 when he moved to Europe. I have mixed feelings about it. He was an idol, but not a healthy minded man.
But in 2002 I had a miscarriage, at 13 weeks. And funnily enough after that I had my best-ever tournament result, in January 2003.
An amusing fact: as far as I can recall, when playing the Ruy Lopez I have not yet once in my life had to face the Marshall Attack!