Garry Kasparov famous quotes

A grandmaster needs to retain thousands of games in his head, for games are to him what the words of their mother tongue are to ordinary people, or notes or scores to musicians..
-- Garry Kasparov

#Mother #Games #People

When I was preparing for one term's work in the Botvinnik school I had to spend a lot of time on king and pawn endings. So when I came to a tricky position in my own games I knew the winning method.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Kings #School #Winning

Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Views #Long #Might

Any experienced player knows how a change in the character of the play influences your psychological mood.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Character #Player #Psychology

This is the essential element that cannot be measured by any analysis or device, and I believe it's at the heart of success in all things: the power of intuition and the ability to harness and use it like a master.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Believe #Heart #Intuition

Nervous energy is the ammunition we take into any mental battle. If you don't have enough of it, your concentration will fade. If you have a surplus, the results will explode.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Battle #Energy

Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Responsibility #Play #Chess

Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Moving #Moving Forward #Problem

If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Brave #Risk #Wish

Chess strength in general and chess strength in a specific match are by no means one and the same thing.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Mean #World #Chess

The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Play #Ideas #Political

Chess is mental torture.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Chess #Torture

The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Hard Work #Focus #Chess

The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Loss #Fighting #Childhood

I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Style #Chess #Symbiosis

It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Team #Intelligent #Blue

The worst enemy of the strategist is the clock. Time trouble... Reduces us all to pure reflex and reaction, tactical play. Emotion and instinct cloud our strategic vision when there is no time for proper evaluation.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Clouds #Play #Enemy

Attackers may sometimes regret bad moves, but it is much worse to forever regret an opportunity you allowed to pass you by.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Regret #Mistake #Moving

In chess the rules are fixed and the outcome is unpredictable, whereas in Putin's Russia the rules are unpredictable and the outcome is fixed.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Russia #Politics #Outcomes

Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Brain #Tactics #Chess

I have great energy and I have great tasks ahead of me.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Energy #Tasks

You can't overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Strong #Believe #Winning

Chess continues to advance over time, so the players of the future will inevitably surpass me in the quality of their play, assuming the rules and regulations allow them to play serious chess. But it will likely be a long time before anyone spends 20 consecutive years as number, one as I did.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Player #Years #Numbers

Botvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations in ordinary life. He used to call chess a typical inexact problem similar to those which people are always having to solve in everyday life.
-- Garry Kasparov

#People #Everyday #Chess

By strictly observing Botvinnik's rule regarding the thorough analysis of one's own games, with the years I have come to realize that this provides the foundation for the continuous development of chess mastery.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Years #Games #Mastery

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

#Chess #Imagine #Difficult

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'.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Games #Chess #Novelty

The biggest problem I see among people who want to excel in chess – and in business and in life in general – is not trusting their instincts enough.
-- Garry Kasparov

#People #Want #Chess

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

#Mistake #Opportunity #Satisfaction

I started playing chess when I was five years old. I learned the moves from my mother, then worked with my father - and later trainers. My style became very technical. I sacrificed a lot of things. I was always hunting for the king, for the mate. I'd forget about my other pieces.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Mother #Kings #Father

My love of dynamic complications often led me to avoid simplicity when perhaps it was the wisest choice.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Mistake #Choices #Simplicity

The technical phase can be boring because there is little opportunity for creavivity, for art. Boredom leads to complacency and mistakes.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Art #Mistake #Opportunity

Next to the intellectual stimulation of chess, the educational value is of great importance. Chess teaches logic, imagination, self-discipline, and determination.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Determination #Educational #Self

I may play some exhibition games so I don't want to quit the game of chess completely. I just decided and it's a firm decision not to play competitive chess anymore.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Games #Play #Decision

Chess is life in miniature. Chess is struggle, chess is battles
-- Garry Kasparov

#Struggle #Battle #Chess

With this mistake I deprived myself of the possibility to make a contribution to the treasury of chess art.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Art #Mistake #Chess

Ultimately, what separates a Winner from a Loser at the Grandmaster level is the Willingness to do the Unthinkable.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Levels #Chess #Loser

Results show that just one year of chess tuition will improve a student's learning abilities, concentration, application, sense of logic, self-discipline, respect, behavior and the ability to take responsibility for his/her own actions.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Responsibility #Years #Self

The highest Art of the Chess player lies in not allowing your Opponent to show you what he can do.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Art #Lying #Player

Though I would have liked my chances in a rematch in 1998 if I were better prepared, it was clear then that computer superiority over humans in chess had always been just a matter of time.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Chess #Matter #Chance

Setbacks and losses are both inevitable and essential if you're going to improve and become a good, even great, competitor. The art is in avoiding catastrophic losses in the key battles.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Art #Loss #Keys

If you make a decision to fight for future of your own country you have to consider all the consequences.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Country #Fighting #Decision

All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after Kasparov.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Fate #Years #Two

I've met enough KGB colonels in my life.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Kgb #Enough #Mets

We have to stop the propaganda, the shameful propaganda used by Kremlin to rehabilitate these old types.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Rehabilitation #Propaganda #Used

... Tarrasch's 'dogmas' are not eternal truisms, but merely instructional material presented in an accessible and witty form, those necessary rudiments from which one can begin to grasp the secrets of chess ...
-- Garry Kasparov

#Witty #Secret #Chess

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.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Truth #Style #Heritage

There can be no finer example of the inspiring powers of competition to shatter the status quo than Hungary's Judit Polgar.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Women #Competition #Example

Putin recognized that if he could get enough money, everything would be under control.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Would Be #Putin #Enough

My nature is that I have to excite myself with a big challenge.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Challenges #Bigs

Everyone, at any age, has talents that aren't fully developed-even those who reach the top of their profession.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Age #Talent #Profession

If you don't take risks, you don't drink champagne.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Risk #Drink #Champagne

The Russian Dept of Tourism has declared Ukraine its most dangerous destination. Many Russian tourists have disappeared there.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Ukraine #Tourism #Tourists

Boris Vasilievich was the only top-class player of his generation who played gambits regularly and without fear ... Over a period of 30 years he did not lose a single game with the King's Gambit, and among those defeated were numerous strong players of all generations, from Averbakh, Bronstein and Fischer, to Seirawan.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Strong #Kings #Player

I dropped the King's Indian in 1997 after one too many bad experiences against Kramnik.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Kings #Chess #Opening

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

#Moving #Doe #Opponents

If critics and competitors can't match your results, they will often denigrate the way you achieve them. Fast, intuitive types are called lazy. Dedicated burners of the midnight oil are called obsessed. And while it's obviously not a bad idea to hear and consider the opinions of others, you should be suspicious when these criticisms emerge right on the heels of success.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Ideas #Oil

Winning is not a secret that belongs to a very few, winning is something that we can learn by studying ourselves, studying the environment and making ourselves ready for any challenge that is in front of us.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Winning #Challenges

The stock market and the gridiron and the battlefield aren't as tidy as the chessboard, but in all of them, a single, simple rule holds true: make good decisions and you'll succeed; make bad ones and you'll fail.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Simple #Decision

Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Careers #Challenges

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Choices #Decision

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Success #Player #Skills

A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Matter #Brilliant #Strategy

A grandmaster must memorize thousands of chess duels in his head, as these are for him what words of the mother tongue are to the ordinary people and what notes are to a musician.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Mother #People #Musician

In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America.
-- Garry Kasparov

#America #Chess #Facts

With each success the ability to change is reduced. My longtime friend and coach Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, aptly compared it to being dipped in bronze. Each victory added another coat.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Victory #Coats #Ability To Change

It's not enough to be talented. It's not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you use to reach your decisions.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Hard Work #Night #Decision

Ukraine had quite serious impact on the many Russians. They could see that ordinary people in Ukraine which is a bordering state, very close to Russia, the people of this state are, they didn't want to tolerate anymore the power abuse by Ukrainian officials.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Impact #Russia #Ukraine

If you're already in a fight, you want the first blow to be the last and you had better be the one to throw it.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Fighting #Blow #Want

There is no one that can share your responsibility. It it is your responsibility you must carry it on and you must be responsible for your actions. At the end of the day we all are being challenged, sooner or later, by our destiny. And it's up to us to make all the difference in this life. If not you, who else?
-- Garry Kasparov

#Responsibility #Destiny #Differences

One does not succeed by sticking to convention.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Succeed #Doe #Conventions

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Player #Legends #Chess

Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is the willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. Given the opportunity, I must have the guts to explode the game, to upend my opponent's thinking and, in so doing, unnerve him. So it is in business: One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Moving #Opportunity #Thinking

Enormous self-belief, intuition, the ability to take a risk at a critical moment and go in for a very dangerous play with counter-chances for the opponent - it is precisely these qualities that distinguish great players.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Player #Self #Risk

By this measure (on the gap between Fischer & his contemporaries), I consider him the greatest world champion
-- Garry Kasparov

#Champion #World #Chess

When your house is on fire, you cant be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in Chess, if your King is under attack you don't worry about losing a Pawn on the Queen's side
-- Garry Kasparov

#Kings #Queens #Fire

For me, chess is a language, and if it's not my native tongue, it is one I learned via the immersion method at a young age.
-- Garry Kasparov

#Age #Chess #Tongue