Quotessence
Home / Authors / Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllChessPutinWorldPeopleIfsCountryRussiaThinkingGamesPlayerMovingWantSuccessYearsChess PlayersComputerLongMeanArtDemocracy

Famous Garry Kasparov Quotes

“For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal. The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play.”

WorldWayLooksPlayInspirationAgeThreeFoundPlayerTwentiesOriginalsRoseChampionOpponentsShockAggressiveConsistentlyMagician1960sWorld Champions
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“To play chess on a truly high level requires a constant stream of exact, informed decisions, made in real time and under pressure from your opponent. What's more, it requires a synthesis of some very different virtues, all of which are necessary to good decisions: calculatioñ, creativity and a desire for results. If you ask a Grandmaster, an artist and a computer scientist what makes a good chess player, you'll get a glimpse of these different strengths in action.”

IfsMadeDifferentRealPlayActionDesireArtistAsksDecisionLevelsResultsCreativityVirtuePlayerComputerScientistPressureConstantChessOpponentsStreamsGlimpseHigh LevelUnder PressureSynthesisChess PlayersDecisions MadeGood Decision
Book:How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom
Create image

“It's interesting that the greatest minds of computer science, the founding fathers, like Alan Turing and Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, they all looked at chess as the ultimate test. So they thought, "Oh, if a machine can play chess, and beat strong players, set aside a world champion, that would be the sign of a dawn of the AI era." With all due respect, they were wrong.”

WorldMindFatherStrongInterestingPlayerComputerUltimateChessChampionComputer Science
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“A very strong player can manage and can just know how to manage a thousand positions. I get it; it's a very arbitrary number. So then you have the world champion who could do more. But, again, any increase in numbers creates, sort of, a new level of playing. And then you go to the very top, and the difference is so minimal, but it does exist. So even a few players who never became world champion, like Vassily Ivanchuk, for instance, I think they belong to the same category.”

ThinkingWorldStrongPlayerManageChampionVery Strong
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“My life is split in three parts; I don't know the percentage. One could be called "chess" - the Kasparov Chess Foundation, promoting the game, training young players, playing on the internet, sometimes exhibitions. The second area would be "writing" - books, articles, Twitter, Facebook. And then "political activity" - fighting for human rights and democracy, so TV, interviews, speeches.”

WritingBookSometimesPoliticalFightingDemocracyPlayerInternetTrainingHuman RightsChess
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“For young players, their minds are not overloaded. I am 54 with four kids and I do many other things. Even if I stopped everything else, spent months working just on chess, for a long match against most of the top players, a classical match, six hours, say, I don't stand a chance. I have a better chance in shorter matches. Rapid is 25 minutes, or blitz events where you have five minutes to make a move, or bullet games, where it is one minute. For blitz, five-minutes chess, I would be top ten, top five. But longer games, no chance.”

MindLongKidsMovingHoursChancePlayerChess
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“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.”

TryingBelieveWinningStrongI BelievePsychologyPlayerAspectImportanceConstantChessBoardsChess PlayersOverestimate
Book:How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom
Create image

“To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.”

MadeAgeFoundGamesMistakePlayerSurpriseChessNewspapersMagazinesAnalysisBoardsColumnsAnnotation
Book:How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom
Create image

“By the time a player becomes a Grandmaster, almost all of his training time is dedicated to work on this first phase. The opening is the only phase that holds out the potential for true creativity and doing something entirely new.”

FirstsCreativityPlayerTrainingChessOpeningDedicatedPhases
Book:How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom
Create image

“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.”

PeopleSelfMatterSuccessPlayerCenturyNeededSkillsChessShyFundChampionshipTwentieth CenturyCharismaCultivatingKnackChess PlayersEpitomePromotersPeople SkillsSponsorship
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image