Best Chess Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 33

Source: How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

“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.”

Ifs Enough Success Energy Results Battle Chess Nervous Concentration Fades Surplus Ammunition

Author:Garry Kasparov

“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.”

Ifs Sometimes Success Choices Decision Situation Pressure Chess Hardest Temptation Things To Do Tension Inferiors Persist Hardest Thing Hardest Thing To Do

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

Source: How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

“A great chess player always has a very good memory.”

Success Memories Player Very Good Chess Good Memories Chess Players

Author:Leonid Shamkovich

“I ... have two vocations: chess and engineering. If I played chess only, I believe that my success would not have been significantly greater. I can play chess well only when I have fully convalesced from chess and when the 'hunger for chess' once more awakens within me.”

Ifs Believe Wells Has Beens I Can Two Play Success I Believe Greater Hunger Chess Engineering Vocation

Author:Mikhail Botvinnik

“You have to accustom yourself to practical study at home, you have to devote time to studies, to the history of chess, the development of chess theory, of chess culture.”

Home Success Culture Study Development Chess Practicals

Author:Mikhail Botvinnik

“A win gives one a feeling of self-affirmation, and success - a feeling of self-expression, but only a sensible harmonization between these urges can bring really great achievements in chess.”

Giving Self Feelings Success Winning Expression Achievement Chess Urges Sensible Affirmation Really Great Self Expression Great Achievement Self Affirmation

Author:Oleg Romanishin

“The ability to create and to control the tension of battle is perhaps the principal attainment of the great player.”

Success Ability Player Battle Chess Tension Principal Attainment

Author:Savielly Tartakower

“I feel that everyone is good. In this way I give every game my best effort. The moment that you let up is the time that you can be hit by the sucker punch.”

Way Giving Feels Moments Success Games Effort Chess Sucker Best Effort Sucker Punch

Author:Walter Browne

“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.”

Giving Persons Success Games Difficult Serious Demand Research Reflection Slavery Bottom Chess Hearted Zealous Faint Hearted

Author:Wilhelm Steinitz

“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.”

People Self Matter Success Player Century Needed Skills Chess Shy Fund Championship Twentieth Century Charisma Cultivating Knack Chess Players Epitome Promoters People Skills Sponsorship

Author:Garry Kasparov

“A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince yourself that your intuition has not deceived you.”

Heart Time Strong Hours Half Player Minutes Conflict Solutions Intuition Chess Convince Deceived

Author:David Bronstein

“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.”

Thinking Games Player Chess Chess Players

Author:Magnus Carlsen

“Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It's your move.”

Moving Opportunity Pieces Player Chess Landscape Chess Pieces

Author:Tony Robbins

“A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge; it is a battle of nerves.”

Games Battle Chess Nerves Examination

Author:David Bronstein

“I consider Mr. Morphy the finest chess player who ever existed. He is far superior to any now living, and would doubtless have beaten Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he is lost.”

Ifs Moving Games Lost Mistake Player Errors Chess Commit Superiors Instance Finest Beaten Adversaries Chess Players

Author:Adolf Anderssen

“I'll always take Scrabble and chess if I'm going filming. But I do have the Scrabble dictionary, which can be infuriating for other players.”

Ifs Player Chess Dictionary Infuriating Scrabble

Author:Saffron Burrows

“Our stories affect one another whether we know it or not. Sometimes obedience isn't for us at all, but for another. We don't know how God holds the kingdom in balance or why he moves a chess piece at a crucial time; we might never see the results of his sovereignty [...] I might just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I'm a part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception.”

Source: 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

“We often hear the terms 'positional' and 'tactical' used as opposites. But this is as wrong as to consider a painting's composition unrelated to its subject. Just as there is no such thing as 'artistic' art, so there is no such thing as 'positional' chess.”

Art Used Term Subjects Painting Opposites Chess Artistic Composition Tactics Tactical

Author:Samuel Reshevsky

“Chess strength in general and chess strength in a specific match are by no means one and the same thing.”

World Mean Chess Championship

Author:Garry Kasparov

“For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it's also right.”

Thinking World Self Play Shows Sound Deals Numbers Right Now Bigger Chess Champion Serving Championship Self Serving World Champions

Author:Magnus Carlsen

“All I expect are wins and to get pleasure from the game. And if someone thinks something about me, if someone's dissatisfied with something... that's not my headache. I hope someday I'll become World Champion - and I'll make all these people happy. But even if for some reason that doesn't happen it won't stop me getting pleasure from chess. I'm sure of that.”

People Ifs Thinking World Reason Happens Games Winning Pleasure Chess Champion Someday Championship Headache Dissatisfied World Champions

Author:Magnus Carlsen

“I am pleased that in a match for the World Championship I was able to conduct a game in the style of Akiba Rubinstein, where the entire strategic course was maintained from the first to the last move.”

World Firsts Able Lasts Moving Courses Games Style Chess Championship Strategic

Author:Boris Gelfand

“The chess world is obligated to organize a match between the champion of the world and the winner of this Carlsbad tournament - indeed, this is a moral obligation. If the world of chess should remain deaf to its obligation, on the other hand, it would amount to an absolutely unforgivable omission, carrying with it a heavy burden of guilt.”

Ifs World Should Hands Moral Amount Guilt Burden Heavy Chess Obligation Winner Champion Championship Organize Deaf Tournaments Omission Moral Obligation Unforgivable Heavy Burdens

Author:Aron Nimzowitsch

“I love the game - and I hate the Russians because they've almost ruined it. They only risk the title when they have to, every three years. They play for draws with each other but play to win against the Western masters. Draws make for dull chess, wins make for fighting chess.”

World Years Play Hate Fighting Three Games Winning Risk Masters Draws I Hate Western Chess Titles Dull Three Years Championship Ruined Play To Win

Author:Bobby Fischer

“Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.”

Thinking Knows World Interest Greater Beats Chess Winner Championship

Author:Bobby Fischer

“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.”

World Way Chess Champion Championship World Champions

Author:Bobby Fischer

“... in itself the title of world champion does not give any significicant advantages, if it is not acknowledged by the entire chess world, and a champion who does not have the chess world behind him is, in my view, a laughing-stock.”

Ifs World Giving Doe Views Behinds Laughing Advantage Chess Titles Champion Championship World Champions

Author:Emanuel Lasker

“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.”

World Years Two Facts Seems Fate This World Chess Two Years Crowns Unfortunate Championship

Author:Garry Kasparov

“The cherished dream of every chessplayer is to play a match with the World Champion. But here is the paradox: the closer you come to the realization of this goal, the less you think about it.”

Thinking World Play Dream Goal Chess Realization Champion Paradox Championship World Champions

Book:Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match For the World Chess Championship

Source: Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match For the World Chess Championship

“When I started out playing chess as a kid I thought I should be world champion. As a kid you have no idea what that means and you only sort of picture it. It is hard to imagine that I waited all those years and it happened in a late stage of my career.”

World Should Years Mean Ideas Hard Kids Careers Imagine Happened Stage Late Chess No Idea Champion Imagine That Championship World Champions Playing Chess

Author:Viswanathan Anand

“In the current FIDE World Championship, on the knock-out system, weaker players have good chances. Those, who in a long match would practically have no chance, here may creep through.”

World May Long Chance Player Currents Chess Championship Creeps Good Chance

Author:Vladimir Kramnik

“I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal person.”

Persons Might Normal Very Good Chess Freak

Author:Magnus Carlsen

“If we talk about pure abilities and skills, I believe there should be no reason why women cannot play as well as men.”

Ifs Men Should Believe Wells Reason Play I Believe Women Ability Pure Skills Chess Reason Why No Reason

Author:Susan Polgar

“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'.”

Games Hours Modern Theory Internet Chess Threatening Novelty Forgetful

Author:Garry Kasparov

“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.”

Happens Form Loses Cases Teaching Theory Chess Charm Originality Supporter Freshness Dogmatic Laconic

Author:Alexander Kotov

“Most of all I like "bad" lines, that is those considered bad, in my opinion unjustly, by theory. The reason for the last quotation marks is that most so-called theory is only a collection of examples from master practice.”

Reason Lasts Lines Opinion Practice Example Masters Theory Mark Chess Collections Quotations Quotation Marks

Author:Bent Larsen

“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.”

Ifs Knows Wells Lasts Player Century Theory Depends Chess Opening Champion Chess Players

Author:Bobby Fischer

“Show me three variations in the leading handbook on the openings, and I will show you two of those three that are defective.”

Two Shows Three Theory Chess Opening Show Me Variation Defective

Author:Emanuel Lasker

“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.”

Form Secret Materials Theory Eternal Witty Chess Dogma Truism

Author:Garry Kasparov

“It must be clearly understood that Soviet players do not seek simple systems in the opening, but try to formulate opening systems in which everything is complicated, distinctive, or new.”

Trying Simple Player Theory Understood Complicated Chess Opening Soviet Distinctive

Book:Botvinnik: 100 Selected Games

Source: Botvinnik: 100 Selected Games

“Not infrequently ... the theoretical is a synonym of the stereotyped. For the 'theoretical' in chess is nothing more than that which can be found in the textbooks and to which players try to conform because they cannot think up anything better or equal, anything original.”

Thinking Trying Found Player Theory Equal Originals Chess Conform Theoretical Textbooks Synonym

Author:Mikhail Chigorin

“It is said that an ounce of common sense can outweigh a ton of 'variations'.”

Said Common Theory Chess Common Sense Variation

Author:Savielly Tartakower

“Lasker thought that his rationalism rendered him immune from the surprises of chess theory.”

Theory Surprise Chess Immune Rationalism

Author:Savielly Tartakower

“The best reason to abolish it, in my opinion, is that everyone should deal with his time in the best way; there is no good reason why you should get half a minute extra with each move, except that it's a bit easier for the arbiter.”

Way Should Reason Moving Time Bits Deals Half Opinion Minutes Easier Chess Best Way Reason Why Extras Abolish Arbiter

Author:Jan Timman

“Go through detailed variations in your own time, think in a general way about the position in the opponent's time and you will soon find that you get into time trouble less often, that your games have more content to them, and that their general standard rises.”

Thinking Way Time Games Trouble Position Standards Chess Opponents Variation

Author:Alexander Kotov

“The masters and grandmasters can be divided into three groups - the inveterate time trouble merchants, those who sometimes get into trouble, and those for whom the phenomenon is a very rare occurence.”

Sometimes Time Three Trouble Groups Masters Chess Phenomenon Divided Merchants

Author:Alexander Kotov

“If you can play the first ten or fifteen moves in just as many minutes, you can be in a state of bliss for the rest of the game. If, on the other hand, Bronstein thinks for forty minutes about his first move, then time trouble is inevitable.”

Ifs Thinking Firsts States Play Hands Moving Time Games Trouble Minutes Ten Chess Inevitable Bliss Forty Fifteen

Author:Alexander Kotov

“Time trouble is blunder time.”

Time Trouble Chess Blunders

Author:Alexander Kotov

“If your opponent is short (on time), play just as you played earlier in the game. If you are short keep calm, I repeat, don't get flustered. Keep up the same neat writing of the moves, the same methodical examination of variations, but at a quicker rate.”

Ifs Writing Play Moving Time Games Rate Calm Chess Opponents Repeats Examination Variation Neat Methodical

Author:Alexander Kotov

Chess Quotes

Related topics

Chess Quotes