Chess famous quotes

Attack! Always Attack!
-- Adolf Anderssen

#Chess #Strategy

Be warned! From Satan's viewpoint you are a pawn in his game of cosmic chess.
-- Adrian Rogers

#Games #Viewpoints #Chess

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

#Play #Chess #Pitcher

Psychology is the most important factor in chess.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Psychology #Important #Chess

I consider chess an art, and accept all those responsibilities which art places upon its devotees.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Art #Responsibility #Chess

During a chess tournament a master must envisage himself as a cross between an ascetic monk and a beast of prey.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Chess #Beast #Strategy

Chess will always be the master of us all.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Chess #Masters

Chess is not only knowledge and logic
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Chess #Logic

I study chess eight hours a day, on principle.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Eight #Principles #Chess

Playing for complications is an extreme measure that a player should adopt only when he cannot find a clear and logical plan.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Player #Chess #Logical

As a rule, so-called "positional" sacrifices are considered more difficult, and therefore more praise-worthy, than those which are based exclusively on an exact calculation of tactical possibilities.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Sacrifice #Chess #Praise

Combination is a soul of chess.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Soul #Chess #Combination

Deux fous gagnent toujours, mais trois fous, non!
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Chess

You can become a big master in chess only if you see your mistakes and short-comings. Exactly the same as in life itself.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Mistake #Chess #Bigs

Capablanca was snatched too early from the chess world. With his death we have lost a great chess genius, the like of whom we will never see again.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Genius #World #Chess

Chess first of all teaches you to be objective.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Objectivity #Chess #Firsts

During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Competition #Chess #Beast

Chess is a matter of vanity.
-- Alexander Alekhine

#Vanity #Chess #Matter

Capablanca used to talk calmly and moderately about everything. However, when our conversation turned to the problems of the battle for the world championship, in front of me was a quite different person: an enraged lion, although with the fervour typical only of a southerner, with his temperamental patter, which made it hard to follow the torrent of his indignant exclamations and words.
-- Alexander Koblencs

#Battle #Chess #Typical

Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!
-- Alexander Kotov

#Genius #Chess #Fischer

The placing of the center pawns determines the 'topography' of a game of chess.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Games #Topography #Chess

It is better to follow out a plan consistently even if it isn't the best one than to play without a plan at all. The worst thing is to wander about aimlessly.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Play #Chess #Strategy

The study of typical plans is something that the leading grandmasters devote a great deal of time to. I would say that the most far-seeing of them devote as much time to this as to the study of openings.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Training #Typical #Chess

If you study the classic examples of endgame play you will see how the king was brought up as soon as possible even though there seemed no particular hurry at the time.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Kings #Play #Chess

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.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Teaching #Chess #Originality

Time trouble is blunder time.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Time #Chess #Trouble

It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.
-- Alexander Kotov

#Art #Artist #Chess

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.
-- Alexander Morozevich

#Reality #Practice #Chess

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.
-- Alexandra Kosteniuk

#Sports #Men #Chess

It's a shame to be the face of chess and to play chess badly.
-- Alexandra Kosteniuk

#Play #Chess #Faces

If people will be interested in me, they will be interested in chess also.
-- Alexandra Kosteniuk

#People #Chess

Chess is changing. I hope chess is getting more popular, more spectacular.
-- Alexandra Kosteniuk

#Chess #Spectacular

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

#Ideas #Chess #Remember

My God, Bobby Fischer plays so simply
-- Alexey Suetin

#Play #Chess #Fischer

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

#War #Opponents #Chess

Chess is everything: art, science, and sport.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Sports #Art #Chess

I still love to play chess. So I do not even spend a minute on the possibility to step back.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Play #Chess #Steps

Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Dog #Player #Chess

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

#Chess #Opinion #Capablanca

Chess is my life, but my life is not chess.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Chess #Life Is

In Kansas I have a chess school
-- Anatoly Karpov

#School #Kansas #Chess

No, no, it is obvious that the ECU should act as a close alliance for the benefit of chess.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Alliances #Benefits #Chess

Style, I've got no style.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Style #Chess

You can't play chess if you're groggy from pills.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Play #Pills #Chess

After that, Kasparov stepped back from chess which is, and I want this to be clear, not good for chess in general at all. As a whole, the current situation in the chess world leaves a lot to be desired
-- Anatoly Karpov

#World #Want #Chess

Furman astounded me with his chess depth, a depth which he revealed easily and naturally, as if all he were doing was establishing well-known truths.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Depth #Chess #Well Known

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

#Book #Benefits #Chess

Seville never had a rich chess tradition. Valencia is entirely different, it is enough to say that one of the city squares is named after me.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Squares #Cities #Chess

But how difficult it can be to gain the desired full point against an opponent of inferior strength, when this is demanded by the tournament position!
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Success #Opponents #Chess

It is dangerous to maintain equality at the cost of placing the pieces passively.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Cost #Pieces #Chess

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!
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Chess #Faces #Facts

Playing black, I put great stake in the Ruy Lopez: I liked it, feel it, and understand it; in matches with Hjartarson and Timman it served me well. - on preparing for World Championship versus Garry Kasparov
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Black #World #Chess

I like 1.e4 very much, but my results are better with 1.d4.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Chess #Pawns #Results

I have found after 1.d4 there are more opportunities for richer play.
-- Anatoly Karpov

#Opportunity #Play #Chess

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

#Knights #Chess #Facts

Chess is 99 percent calculation.
-- Andrew Soltis

#Chess

You know you're going to lose. Even when I was ahead I knew I was going to lose -on playing against Fischer
-- Andrew Soltis

#Chess #Fischer

Genius is a starry word; but if there ever was a chess player to whom that attribute applied, it was Paul Morphy.
-- Andrew Soltis

#Player #Genius #Chess

Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves.
-- Anne Bronte

#Player #Chess #Company

Touch the pawns before your king with only infinite delicacy.
-- Anthony Santasiere

#Kings #Delicacy #Chess

It is a well known phenomenon that the same amateur who can conduct the middle game quite creditably, is usually perfectly helpless in the end game. One of the principal requisites of good chess is the ability to treat both the middle and end game equally well.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Games #Chess #Well Known

Even the laziest King flees wildly in the face of a double check!
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Kings #Chess #Faces

The isolated Pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Pawns #Casts

No pawn exchanges, no file-opening, no attack.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Pawns #Opening

Ridicule can do much, for instance embitter the existence of young talents.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Talent #Young

Strategically important points should be overprotected. If the pieces are so engaged, they get their regard in the fact that they will then find themselves well posted in every respect.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Important #Pieces #Chess

First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Next #Firsts

The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Pieces #Chess #Imaginary

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

#Occupation #Chess #Operations

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.
-- Arpad Elo

#Reading #Two #Chess

I don't know what I am going to play, so how can he know what I am going to play!
-- Arthur Bisguier

#Play #Chess

Amberley excelled at chess - a mark, Watson, of a scheming mind.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle

#Mind #Chess #Mark

By playing at Chess then, we may learn: First: Foresight... Second: Circumspection... Third: Caution...And lastly, we learn by Chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs, the habit of hoping for a favorable chance, and that of persevering in the secrets of resources
-- Benjamin Franklin

#Secret #May #Chess

Chess is so interesting in itself, as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money
-- Benjamin Franklin

#Views #Interesting #Chess

Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events.
-- Benjamin Franklin

#Struggle #Competition #Chess

Chess is a beautiful mistress.
-- Bent Larsen

#Beautiful #Mistress #Chess

A chess player never has a heart attack in a good position.
-- Bent Larsen

#Heart #Player #Chess

I often play a move I know how to refute.
-- Bent Larsen

#Moving #Play #Chess

One charming characteristic of many flank attacks I could mention is that they do not very often lead to simplification: if the attack is parried, there usually are still opportunities left for initiating action in another sector.
-- Bent Larsen

#Opportunity #Chess #Action

Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory!
-- Bent Larsen

#Years #Black #Chess

In my opinion the Open variation is absolutely correct - and more interesting than the Closed.
-- Bent Larsen

#Interesting #Variation #Chess

Lack of patience is probably the most common reason for losing a game, or drawing games that should have been won.
-- Bent Larsen

#Games #Drawing #Chess

The stomach is an essential part of the Chess master
-- Bent Larsen

#Essentials #Chess #Masters

Chess is my profession. I am my own boss; I am free. I like literature and music, classical especially. I am in fact quite normal; I have a Bohemian profession without being myself a Bohemian. I am neither a conformist nor a great revolutionary.
-- Bent Larsen

#Boss #Chess #Facts

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.
-- Betty Furness

#Football #Games #Chess

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.
-- Blaise Pascal

#Mind #Chess #Gymnasiums

All I want to do, ever, is play chess.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Play #Want #Chess

You can only get good at Chess if you love the game
-- Bobby Fischer

#Games #Chess

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Player #Champion #Chess

I add status to any tournament I attend.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Add #Chess

Chess demands total concentration
-- Bobby Fischer

#Demand #Chess #Concentration

I think it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Thinking #Games #Chess

My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration
-- Bobby Fischer

#Moving #Opponents #Chess

Blitz chess kills your ideas.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Ideas #Chess #Blitz

Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all
-- Bobby Fischer

#Genius #Chess

I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it
-- Bobby Fischer

#Player #Chess #World

Chess is like war on a board
-- Bobby Fischer

#War #Boards #Chess

I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess Others give only 2 percent
-- Bobby Fischer

#Giving #Energy #Chess

You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances
-- Bobby Fischer

#Moving #Fighting #Chess

When I was eleven, I just got good.
-- Bobby Fischer

#Chess #Eleven