Chess Quotes - Page 29

• The main line of the Yugoslav Attack has become just too vast for most players to study in depth, and anyone intending to venture into such tricky waters needs to have an intimate knowledge of all the hidden reefs.

  John Nunn

  Player, Water, Depth

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• My very first book was a games collection of Anatoly Karpov. On the whole I was attracted by positonal play with some tactics, and already then I was aiming for universality.

  Vladimir Kramnik

  Book, Practice, Games

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• I think a player constantly improves his understanding of chess with experience.

  Yasser Seirawan

  Player, Thinking, Practice

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• 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.

  Efim Geller

  Player, Years, Practice

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• At the ches with me she (Fortune) gan to pleye; With her false draughts (pieces) dyvers/She staal on me, and took away my fers. And when I sawgh my fers awaye, Allas! I kouthe no lenger playe.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Queens, Pieces, Fortune

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• In choosing an opening plan players think most of all of harmonious development for the pieces, but sometimes leave the development of the queen out of their considerations. Yet the Queen is the most valuable and important piece and the whole outcome can depend upon how successfully she plays her role.

  Alexander Kotov

  Queens, Player, Thinking

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• A Queen's sacrifice, even when fairly obvious, always rejoices the heart of the chess-lover.

  Savielly Tartakower

  Queens, Heart, Sacrifice

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• 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.

  Alexander Khalifman

  Player, Thinking, People

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• 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, Opinion

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

  Alexey Suetin

  War, Opponents, Film

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• 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.

  Mikhail Tal

  Sacrifice, Artist, Thinking

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• It so often happens that, after sacrificing a pawn, a player aims not to obtain the initiative for it, but to regain sacrificed material.

  Efim Geller

  Sacrifice, Player, Pawns

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• Chess sharpens the mind, stimulates concentration, improves the memory and promotes visualization.

  Samuel Reshevsky

  Memories, Mind, Concentration

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• Good players develop a tactical instinct, a sense of what is possible or likely and what is not worth calculating.

  Samuel Reshevsky

  Player, Tactics, Instinct

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• No matter how much theory progresses, how radically styles change, chess play is inconceivable without tactics.

  Samuel Reshevsky

  Play, Style, Progress

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• It often happens that a player is so fond of his advantageous position that he is reluctant to transpose to a winning endgame.

  Samuel Reshevsky

  Winning, Player, Endgame

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• Tartakower once wrote that after planting a Knight in the center you can go to sleep. This is not to be taken literally, of course, but it contains more than a germ of truth.

  Samuel Reshevsky

  Taken, Sleep, Knights

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• The only good Rook is a working Rook!

  Samuel Reshevsky

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• I felt that chess... is a science in the form of a game... I consider myself a scientist. I wanted to be treated like a scientist.

  Bobby Fischer

  Games, Scientist, Form

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• 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

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• Despite the development of chess theory, there is much that remains secret and unexplored in chess.

  Vasily Smyslov

  Secret, Development, Theory

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• When men lose against me, they always have a headache ... or things of that kind. I have never beaten a completely healthy man!

  Susan Polgar

  Funny, Women, Humorous

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• I would never suggest to anyone that they drop school for chess. First of all even if you can make it in chess, your social skills need to be developed there.

  Viswanathan Anand

  School, Skills, Firsts

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• 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

  Worst Enemy, Play, Clouds

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.30, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• When you trade, the key concern is not always the value of the pieces being exchanged, but what's left on the board.

  Dan Heisman

  Keys, Boards, Pieces

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