Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The task of the positional player is systematically to accumulate slight advantages and try to convert temporary advantages into permanent ones, otherwise the player with the better position runs the risk of losing it.
Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research.
From time to time, like many other players, I glance through my own games of earlier years, and return to positions and variations which have gone out of practice. I attempt to restore them, to find new ideas and plans.
Your Soviet players are cheating, losing the games on purpose to my rival, Botvinnik, in order to increase his points on the score. - (to Stalin in Moscow 1936 where he finished in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Botvinnik)
Analysis is a glittering opportunity for training: it is just here that capacity for work, perseverence and stamina are cultivated, and these qualities are, in truth, as necessary to a chess player as a marathon runner.
My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, for all the science and sport involved in it.
I think the draw quotient has always been high in world championship matches because the amount of effort people put into neutralizing each other's openings. It's just now with computers that it has reached a new level.
I go to the gym every day. That tends to taper off when I'm at a tournament. During tournaments, I'm not trying to build fitness. I'm simply trying to keep away any kind of tension. I go for long walks to clear my head.
A lot of these ideas are built under wrong presumptions which officials have that chess players are lazy bastards whose sole idea is to deceive (the) public and to make short draws and go home. It's not true. It's a lie.
The knight is renowned for, among other things, its suitability as a blockader ... Because its strength lies in short-range operations it is not uncomfortable standing in a single spot for long periods, as the Bishop is.
As a personality, I'm fighter, you know. And I don't give up, and if I believe I'm correct, I'm right, then I work, and I fight. Okay, this could be over a chess board, this could be in life, and so I defend my principles.
I tend not to dwell on the parallels between chess and business, chess and the martial arts, or any two things for that matter, because the truth is that all pursuits are connected if we gain an eye for the thematic links.
Professional players work almost every day, for hours on end, and the emphasis is on the word 'work.' It can be with a partner or it can be alone, but professional chess is always a pursuit of something new and surprising.
In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before everything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.
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.
Chess is, in essence, a game for children. Computers have exacerbated the trends towards youth because they now have an immensely powerful tool at their disposal and can absorb vast amounts of information extremely quickly.
Nowadays young people have great choice of occupations, hobbies, etc, so chess is experiencing difficulties because of the high competition. Now it's hard to make living in chess, so our profession does attract young people.
There are some aspects of work you need to keep working on and no matter what environment you are in. Continuous learning is very important. It's what I call 'competitive tension', which is about having a competition around.
I believe that Chess possesses a magic that is also a help in advanced age. A rheumatic knee is forgotten during a game of chess and other events can seem quite unimportant in comparison with a catastrophe on the chessboard.
If you believe in what you're doing, and someone criticizes that, it's likely that they're just coming from a different place and they're bringing their own baggage and it's basically projection. I try not to let it get to me.
Rating systems work perfectly for players who play only in round robin closed events. I think most of them are overrated. Organizers invite same people over and over because they have the same rating and their rating stays high.
I notice a lot of younger artists have difficulty telling stories. They might have short stories where they express themselves well, but they don't really know how to tell stories with characters. That craft just passed them by.
I love chess very much. I love the game, the challenges. I could motivate myself as I was curious about how to improve every game. In chess, it's very clear that if you make a mistake you are punished. If you play well, you win.
As Rousseau could not compose without his cat beside him, so I cannot play chess without my king's bishop. In its absense the game to me is lifeless and void. The vitalizing factor is missing, and I can devise no plan of attack.
The Internet gives you access to a lot of material, and it's fun to sit and read. I go to something like Wikipedia and look at different topics... I find the subject fascinating. I like to read about concepts and mathematicians.
On the highest level, of course there's a lot of competitiveness and drive in the players. They really want to win. But it's normal that the players are also just friends. Even very close friends. Or rivals, but in a healthy way.
Sometimes an opponent stops breathing, and you realise something drastic has happened and they are trying not to let on. Or they go quiet, or they get fidgety. After a while you pick these things up and become more alert to them.
Once he had selected the path he was going down he really had to stick with it in a 16 game match. He had to try and hit in the one direction but unfortunately for him - though fortunately for me! - he hit in the wrong direction.
When asked, -How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?, I responded: I'm very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his
In chess you try to do your best, but there are instances where you make mistakes or you try and take risks that you shouldn't. And I think losing games is a good thing, because you learn more from when you lose than when you win.
Very gifted people, they win and they win, and they are told that they win because they are a winner. That seems like a positive thing to tell children, but ultimately, what that means is when they lose, it must make them a loser.
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.
If there were a 1:1 ratio of women and men in the chess world I would agree that all tournaments should be integrated. But a lot of women feel alienated at these mixed events, so it's positive to have occasional all women's events.
At the very core of my relationship to learning is the idea that we should be as organic as possible. We need to cultivate a deeply refined introspective sense, and build our relationship to learning around our nuance of character.
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!!!
For me, chess is not a profession, it is a way of life, a passion. People may feel that I have conquered the peak and will not have to struggle. Financially, perhaps that is true; but as far as chess goes, I'm still learning a lot!
I happen to think Latinas, Latin women, are the most beautiful women in the world. So that's what I'm going to draw. I love women from all cultures, of course, but if I was going to deal with any of them, that would be No. 1 for me.
Every single person in the profession has an engine as a helper now. The engines contain six or seven million games, searchable by opening move, player, country, time control. That makes it possible to really research your opponent.
I will not hide the fact that I love to hear the spectators react after a sacrifice of a piece or pawn. I don't think that there is anything bad in such a feeling; no artist or musician is indifferent to the reactions of the public.
I had a toothache during the first game. In the second game I had a headache. In the third game it was an attack of rheumatism. In the fourth game, I wasn't feeling well. And in the fifth game? Well, must one have to win every game?
No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art, if these qualities do not lead to the main goal - the search for truth.
I do not play chess – I fight at chess. Therefore, I willingly combine the tactical with the strategic, the fantastic with the scientific, the combinative with the positional, and I aim to respond to the demands of each given position.
When I analyse a position, I have a sparring partner who understands chess amazingly well. In a way I feel sorry for him, because of his work with me he cannot play as much chess as he wants. He more or less gave up his playing career.
My father and mother are exceptional pedagogues who can motivate and tell it from all different angles. Later, chess for me became a sport, an art, a science, everything together. I was very focused on chess, and happy with that world.
Things like the financial markets - a proper grounding in mathematics could help the common man. I believe that if people are more familiar with mathematical concepts... it can help deal with modern life, which is increasingly complex.
Some scientist needs to explain to spectators Einstein's relativity theory. Before his explanation, he says: 'I have to suffer a lot explaining something I don't understand myself.' This relates to my game: I didn't understand anything!
The Berlin Defence suited my strategy for the match. I had a defensive strategy - Actually, I had in my pocket some other sharper stuff to fall back on - but first I wanted to try the defensive strategy with Black and it worked so well.
I cannot claim to thoroughly enjoy coaching, because it is very hard work if you are even moderately conscientious. Nevertheless it does provide a degree of satisfaction - not to mention a steady income, which is why I do it occasionally.
The days when it was possible to win a serious game only by merit of sporting character or depth of chess understanding have vanished forever. Chess knowledge has become dominant, bypassing all the other factors that contribute to success.
Chess is a very tough game, and psychologically a tough game. And of course chess needs a lot of qualities, human qualities. And so you must have very strong nervous system and then you must be well prepared, you must be able to work a lot.