Edward Winter
Since January 2024 the main C.N. page has highlighted a documented quote, changes being made more or less daily. Here we bring together all past citations.
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‘Chess – even among masters and near-masters – is a lottery. The only difference between it and a real lottery is that at our game there are as many winners as losers.’
Source: W. Heidenfeld, Chess Springbok (Cape Town, 1955), page 39. See C.N. 10481.
‘Book openings are to a great extent ignored by good players. The stronger the players, the more the book openings are discarded.’
Source: Interview with J.H. Zukertort on page 8 of the St Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, 29 December 1883. See C.N. 9864.
‘The greatest difficulty of the game is to play it as well as one knows how.’
Source: W.E. Napier, item 243 in Napier’s Amenities and Background of Chess-Play.
‘We believe that his strength is his weakness; he plays such bizarre openings and such complicated games that very often he is just as much puzzled as his opponent, if not more so, as to the best course to follow.’
Source: J.R. Capablanca on Nimzowitsch, on page 1 of the New York Times (Sports Section), 16 February 1927.
‘You cannot make a move better than it is by wishful thinking, or by admiration for the spirit in which it is played. Otherwise we could all be Tals.’
Source: G. Botterill, August 1975 BCM, page 347.
‘The player who completes his development first is said to have the initiative, because he is thus able to start making blunders while his opponent is still occupied in bringing out his men.’
Source: page 14 of “Among These Mates” by Chielamangus, the pseudonym of C.J.S. Purdy (Sydney, 1939). [Modernized option: ‘The player who completes his or her development first is said to have the initiative, because he or she is thus able to start making blunders while his or her opponent is still occupied in bringing out his or her men or women.’]
‘The victor of Hastings, the pathfinder in the thickest of chess theory, gifted with pleasant and lovable traits, a source of pleasure and joy and a teacher for thousands, he should not have been suffered to be without the comforts that make work easy and keep health intact. Instead he was made to work hard, he had to spend the valuable matter of his brain in many “entertainments” lasting six to ten hours in order to earn a barely sufficient livelihood.’
Source: Em. Lasker on H.N. Pillsbury, in an obituary on pages 25-27 of Lasker’s Chess Magazine, May 1906.
‘A game consists essentially of a quest, a con-quest and an in-quest.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, January 1955, page 32.
‘We regret we find it difficult to work up any interest in scores of games, or bits of scores, which carry no clue of any kind as to source. Please give the who’s who, where’s where, and when’s when.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, April 1958, page 101.
‘We read again that the King’s Gambit is dead. It never quite recovered from its previous deaths.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, August 1970, page 226.
‘We read that So-and-so is a young player to be watched. We could name one or two older ones who should be kept under observation.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, December 1976, page 568.
‘A chess optimist is one who thinks he will never do anything as stupid again.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, November 1975, page 509.
‘Chess is a game for the salon no less than for the saloon.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, July 1955, page 210.
‘There is, of course, no such thing as “the best opening”. Beginners, we have always felt, are best started on the Giuoco Piano. With established players it largely becomes a question of temperament. Some day we may have a book where openings will be divided into the phlegmatic, the choleric, the stoic, the mercuric, the ecstatic, the pacific, the philosophic, etc., etc.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, July 1954, page 223.
‘The quip about Gossip pottering and Potter gossiping at a club is a pretty old one (W.N. Potter, 1840-1895). In chess it seems that longevity is the soul of wit.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, July 1959, page 185.
‘There can be nothing more satisfying than teaching the game to young players, nothing more delusive than to look deliberately for world champions. For every youngster with a spark of genius there are plenty with ignition trouble.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, November 1956, page 310.
‘“The squares on a chessboard are all equal”, says a new guide to the game. We shall just go on playing as if the discovery had not been made.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, June 1974, page 204.
‘Work through all the traps you can. But don’t forget, it is not enough to learn all the tricks of the trade – you must learn the trade.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, July 1964, page 213.
‘The art of chess may be called the most tragic of all arts, because the chess artist, in a measure, is dependent on an element outside the scope of his power; that element is the hostile co-workers who through carelessness constantly threaten to wreck a flawless mental edifice.’
Source: A. Alekhine, New York Times, 1 August 1929, pages 21 and 23. See Alekhine on Carlsbad, 1929.
‘Chess reviewers, as a rule, are so indiscriminately laudatory that conscientious criticism is likely to be regarded as the work of a malevolent, splenetic and generally unpleasant individual, yet such ought not to be the case. It is an easy matter to write a gushingly favorable notice ...’
Source: F.M. Teed, International Chess Magazine, May 1886, page 109. See Reviewing Chess Books.
‘It is only a strong player who knows how weakly he plays.’
Source: S. Tartakower, Chess Pie, 1922, page 28.
‘Where openings are concerned, chess masters are like a flock of sheep; everyone follows the first master’s example.’
Source: J.R. Capablanca, in an article in Capablanca-Magazine, 31 July 1914, pages 89-91.
‘Every bad player seems to think himself quite competent to pass judgment on a loser’s game.’
Source: S.S. Boden, A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess (London, 1851), page 24. See C.N. 10087.
‘Despite all the strictures against greed, nearly all players succumb to the temptation to grab first and think it over later.’
Source: I. Chernev, 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (New York, 1955), page 22.
‘To the folly of the lay journalist writing about chess there is no end.’
Source: Chess Amateur, October 1925, page 3.
‘If, in the magazine, we were to remove every item which some reader dislikes, we may well be left with two staples – and then we’re certain someone has already complained about their quality.’
Source: BCM, December 1973, page 515.
‘We do not approve of dry, completely objective annotations – this move is correct, this superior, this inferior, etc. An annotator should try rather to enter into the mind of the player, and explain his ideas.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, 1
March 1946, page 33. C.N. 10382.
‘To those who have taken up chess as an intellectual and fascinating pastime, and who are often beaten at odds by players of inferior grammar, it will be cheering to know that many persons are skilful chess players, though in some instances their brains, in a general way, compare unfavourably with the cogitative faculties of a rabbit.’
Source: J. Mortimer, Daily Mail, 6 October 1906, page 9. See C.N. 6122.
‘It is one of the most enticing riddles of the centuries-old attractiveness of chess that a phenomenon so deeply rooted in the materialistic and rapacious should offer a satisfaction which is so deeply spiritual and so innocent of harm to one’s fellow man.’
Source: I.A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld, How to Improve Your Chess: Second Steps (New York, 1952), page 119. See C.N. 8404.
‘Position is everything. To give up a pawn is sometimes a bolder venture than to abandon a queen.’
Source: I.O. Howard Taylor, Chess Brilliants
(London, 1869), page v. C.N. 6116.
‘A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them.’
Source: W. Hazlitt, Table-Talk (London, 1821), page 198.
‘Masters of the future may differ from the older ones in paying less attention to material advantages. In this connection, Sämisch has made one of the most telling comments I have ever encountered on the subject: he remarks that he finds it easier to sacrifice in a blindfold game than in a regular game – because in a blindfold game he finds it easier to ignore purely material considerations.’
Source: M. Euwe, Chess Review, March 1952, pages 74-75. C.N. 10276. See Max Euwe (1901-81).
‘Among the masters, it seems that clock management is the hardest part of the game. Only Lasker and Capablanca have mastered it, the former by his super-normal endowment of common sense, the latter by heaven-born genius.’
Source: Australasian Chess Review, 8 October 1936, page 288. C.N. 9803.
‘Strategy is concerned with the setting of an aim and the forming of schemes. Tactics are concerned with the execution of the schemes. Strategy is abstract, tactics are concrete. Expressing it in a popular way: Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation.’
Source: M. Euwe, Strategy & Tactics in Chess (London, 1937), page 2. See Chess Strategy and Tactics.
‘The chess player is critical and discriminating in his judgment of matters chessic, fastidious in his tastes generally and artistic in his temperament. A chess magazine to please him must therefore be critical and discriminating in the contents of its game, problem and analytical departments, fastidious in its choice of literary contributions and artistic both as to form and substance.’
Source: Em. Lasker, Lasker’s Chess Magazine, November 1904, page 29. See C.N. 7818.
‘Some remarks on correctness in general. It is a great quality in combination with others, but in itself it does not furnish any absolute proof of superiority, any more than the possession of any other single faculty, like knowledge, memory, etc. A man’s vision may be clear, but he may be short-sighted, or he may turn his eyes in the wrong direction. A player may be exact in his combinations and calculations, but that does not necessarily include his having acquired sound strategical principles which often dispense with analysis altogether.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, May 1886, pages 114-115. See Steinitz Quotes.
‘It would not take more than a couple of weeks of careful instruction from a coach or a fan to realize that American football is an open-air chess game disguised as warfare.’
Source: A. Cooke, BBC Radio (Letter from America), 9 January 1971. See Alistair Cooke and Chess.
‘The man who criticizes books which tend to be scientific or literary is paid badly. Consequently no-one is induced to make a serious study of the act of criticism, with the result that much passes for great that is merely mediocre, and that the mediocre is praised beyond merit.’
Source: Em. Lasker, The Community of the Future (New York, 1940), page 181. See Reviewing Chess Books.
‘Capablanca told me that he is not as good a player as he used to be. I asked him why, and he said: “If a man gives all his life to any one game he becomes a crank.”’
Source: Daily Mail, 6 January 1931, page 7. See C.N. 8193.
‘In chess I am also a staunch supporter of classical clarity of thought. The content of a game should be a search for truth, and victory a demonstration of its rightness. No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art if these qualities do not lead to the main goal – the search for truth.’
Source: V. Smyslov, 125 Selected Games (Oxford, 1983), page 5. C.N. 502. See Vassily Smyslov 1921-2010.
‘The players of 1862 knew something very valuable that the players of today would do well to make note of: 1 P-Q4 leads to nothing!’
Source: R.J. Fischer, Chess Life, April 1964, page 84. (See C.N. 4641.)
‘Chess openings are, like everything else, governed by the tyrannical law of fashion. Tried friends are neglected and superseded by upstarts of doubtful origin, whose only claim to favour is that some chess swell patronized them on a more or less important occasion. All the wisdom and science of analytical writers will fail to dethrone one opening or raise another on the pedestal of public favour.’
Source: J.H. Zukertort, Chess Monthly, October 1879, page 53. (See C.N. 2233.)
‘And well ’twould be if chess alone
Disputes ’twixt nations settle could,
Instead of pawns of flesh and bone,
The men of ivory or wood.’
Source: W.S. Branch, Chess Amateur, October 1914, page 19. See Chess and Poetry.
‘And yet there are people who maintain that Karpov and Korchnoi are stronger than Lasker and Schlechter. They must be joking.’
Source: W. Heidenfeld, Draw! (London, 1982), page 30. See The Lasker v Schlechter Controversy (1910).
‘... the more I play chess the less I care for any other indoor game, and I have found no recreation, not even the reading of some masterpiece of literature, so intensely moving, so enthralling, so completely absorbing as a keen struggle across the chessboard.’
Source: R.P. Michell, BCM, March 1904, page 113.
‘On principle, I accept no gambit as the first player, for if I must defend myself as the second player and should also defend myself as the first player, when should I then really enjoy the pleasure of attack?’
Source: S. Tarrasch, St Petersburg, 1914 tournament book (Yorklyn, 1993), page 177. C.N. 2018.
‘A chessplayer should have an equal share of confidence and diffidence; those who are over-confident are apt to despise their antagonist, and the too timid see difficulties in that which is easy; it is not a bad plan to undertake difficult things as easy, and easy things as difficult.’
Source: W. Lewis, A Series of Progressive Lessons on the Game of Chess (London, 1831), page 22. C.N. 2395.
‘Zukertort has good-naturedly and not unkindly expressed the opinion that if I had been less experimental and less hazardous in my play I might have secured higher positions in tournaments; and Mr Minchin in his great and very successful work [the London, 1883 tournament book] did me more than justice; if, however, I have had less success than some other players, I have derived more amusement and real pleasure from the combinations of the game, besides which if I am not original in chess I am nothing.’
Source: H.E. Bird, Modern Chess and Chess Masterpieces (London, 1887), page 5. C.N. 3085.
‘Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic of the chess-player.’
Source: S. Tarrasch, The Game of Chess (London, 1935), page 79. The original edition, Das Schachspiel (Berlin, 1931), stated on page 110: ‘Mißtrauen ist eine der notwendigsten Charaktereigenschaften des Schachspielers.’ See C.N. 5684 and Siegbert Tarrasch.
‘Even busy people should try to co-operate in the sharing of good things.’
Source: W.H. Cozens, BCM, February 1957, page 40. See C.N. 10815.
‘He has the lamentable distinction of being – throughout the English-speaking world, anyway – the most under-estimated chess writer in the world.’
Source: CHESS, April 1965, page 230, concerning Werner Lauterbach. C.N.s 3413 and 3416.
‘It is a curious thing, this business of making problems. The mathematical and the artistic faculties (for want of better adjectives) seem blended together, as they are in scarcely any other pursuit. To the looker-on, this crouching by oneself over a chessboard for hours at a stretch, continually shifting a few units of force, of different functions, along two dimensions, seems an inconceivable waste of time. To the composer, it seems that his brain is working at its highest tension, and producing its finest capabilities. As for the rest of his body, it has hardly a conscious existence, during those hours. When it does wake up and protest, it is time to put away the chessmen.’
Source: B. Harley, Mate in Two Moves (London, 1931), page 170.
‘Of all the openings, perhaps the Vienna is the most prolific in beautiful variations, and in throwing off strong branches quite close to the root of the main stem.’
Source: J. Pierce and W.T. Pierce, Pierce Gambit, Chess Papers and Problems (London, 1888), page 3. C.N. 3129.
‘Chess can never, either in England or America, become a profession. It is but a scientific recreation – the highest, indeed, of all – but still only a recreation; and he who would make it more, and propose it as the end and aim of his existence, must inevitably sink into that most contemptible of characters – the man of one idea – the mere Chess player.’
Source: Chess Player’s Chronicle, February 1859, page 38. C.N. 2271.
‘Probably there have been two pure geniuses in chess; Morphy and Capablanca. Tal is also a genius as a tactician, but because he makes a lot of unsound sacrifices this is not pure genius; Morphy and Capablanca hardly ever made tactical mistakes. Perhaps Rubinstein was also a genius of positional chess, and his playing style was also very pure; but he was a bad tactician.’
Source: B. Spassky in a 1966 interview with L. Barden, Chess Life & Review, January 1970, pages 7-13.
‘The main thing is not to be afraid of losing. Why should I be afraid? Although chess is my profession and a very important part of my life, if I lose I know two things: first, it is only a game, and second, by taking the risks I do I will win more than I lose. For some masters losing at chess is almost like dying; for me this is absolutely not so.’
Source: B. Larsen in an interview with C.H.O’D. Alexander on pages 86-94 of Alexander’s A Book of Chess (London, 1973). C.N. 6764. See Bent Larsen (1935-2010).
‘When I was a young player, I read The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev which made chess seem extremely easy. However, I then read Alekhine’s Best Games of Chess, which made chess seem impossibly difficult. I eventually discovered that the truth lies somewhere between the two.’
Source: J. Nunn, New in Chess, 3/2002, page 98. C.N. 8196. See John Nunn.
‘Thanks to the Internet’s matchless ability to spread myths and rumors, I’ve found myself bombarded with all sorts of misinformation about my own intellect. Spurious lists of “highest IQs in history” might find me between Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, both of whom have probably taken as many proper IQ tests as I have: zero.’
Source: G. Kasparov with M. Greengard, Deep Thinking (New York, 2017), pages 14-15. C.N. 10433. See Garry Kasparov Miscellanea.
‘You must be prepared to lose hundreds of games before you qualify yourself as a first-class player.’
Source: H. Peachey, Everybody’s Guide to Chess and Draughts (London, 1896), page 61. See C.N.s 3150 and 3155.
‘On the whole, I do not like annotating other people’s games. The point is that I consider that it is very difficult to penetrate into a player’s thinking, to guess the direction of the variations thought out by him, and therefore it is better to be indulgent towards one’s own games. I prefer to make my annotations “hot on the heels”, as it were, when the fortunes of battle, the worries, hopes and disappointments are still sufficiently fresh in my mind.’
Source: M. Tal, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal (New York, 1976), page 25. C.N. 9569. See Mikhail Tal (1936-92).
‘Petrosian sees chess as the organization of available chess space. This, basically, is what chess is. Mate in itself is the denial of space to the opposing king. The idea is as old as chess itself, but the difficulty is to make it work.’
Source: J. Hammond in ‘How Does The World Champion Play Chess?’, Chess World, January 1967, page 2. See C.N. 9693.
‘I am a quiet, simple person. I accept everything: I think that whatever happens is always for the best.’
Source: G. Kasparov in the Sunday Times magazine, 10 August 1986, page 50. See Garry Kasparov Miscellanea.
‘Ordinarily, Fischer is socially evasive rather than hostile, likely to greet even an old friend as if he were expecting a subpoena.’
Source: R. Cantwell, Sports Illustrated, 8 November 1971, page 31. C.N. 9814. See Bobby Fischer Miscellanea.
‘By not winning the title I have put a shadow on my chess career and it is a little sad that I have had to read and hear for more than 40 years that I am not a good player. It seems that all my other achievements in chess have been ignored.’
Source: D. Bronstein, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, co-authored with T. Fürstenberg (London, 1995), page 108.
‘The only advantage of taking the pawn thus, instead of in the way recommended by common sense, is that being likely to involve you in difficulties, it affords a charming opportunity for the display of ingenuity in extricating yourself afterwards.’
Source: H. Staunton, Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1849, page 48. C.N. 1283.
‘Strange to say, all the great masters in their older days play against their own theory. They evidently miss the power of conviction which is the characteristic of youth.’
Source: Dawid Janowsky, American Chess Bulletin, April 1921, page 71. C.N. 1429.
‘I idly reflected that these masters put in some four or six hours’ strenuous thought over one game – and it is strenuous all right, some of them being obviously tired out by the end of the day. But we problemists think nothing of 20, 40, a hundred strenuous hours over one solitary problem. There are two of my retro problems [which] cost me six years of intermittent work – at a guess, a thousand hours – to complete, and I have a score of others over which I have worked ten years, and they are still baffling me.’
Source: T.R. Dawson, Chess Amateur, September 1922, pages 360-361. C.N. 1597. See London, 1922.
‘On the whole, I have a hard time remembering someone else’s published analysis, a failing I have no cause to regret. Such analysis is in most cases simply ballast, weighing down the free flight of fantasy!’
Source: A. Nimzowitsch, Carlsbad International Chess Tournament 1929 (New York, 1981), pages 35-36. C.N. 511.
‘Katsenelinboigen outlines two extreme cases of the spectrum of values – fully conditional and fully unconditional – and says that, in actuality, they are ineffectual in evaluating the material and so are sometimes replaced by semiconditional or semiunconditional valuations, which are distinguished by their differing degrees of conditionality. He defines fully conditional values as those based on complete and consistent linkages among all four preconditions. Accordingly, fully unconditional values are free of the preconditions; the introduction of the first preconditions, which is linked to the formation of the scale of positivity/negativity, results in the appearance of unconditional values. Semiconditional values are those based on some conditions, while semiunconditional values are formed by complete and consistent linkages between the rules of interactions, taking no other conditions into consideration.’
Source: V. Ulea, A Concept of Dramatic Genre and the Comedy of a New Type: Chess, Literature, and Film (Carbondale, 2002), pages 144-145. C.N. 3637.
‘Signor C. Salvioli has reclaimed the birthright of chess literature for Italy. Without exception the first volume of his Teoria e Pratice [del giuoco] degli Scacchi as a collection of games alone is the most valuable chess book extant in any language.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, March 1885, page 83.
‘When analysing a given position, it is fair to say that one almost always sees more in the first five minutes than in the next five minutes. The five minutes after that is even less productive, and so on. I have observed that if a player spends more than 20 minutes over a move, the result is almost always a mistake. The normal decision-making process should not take longer than this, even in fairly complex situations.’
Source: J. Nunn, Secrets of Practical Chess (London, 1998), page 18.
‘A threat or menace of exchange, or of occupation of some important point, is often far more effective than its actual execution.’
Source: J. Mason, Chess Openings (London, 1897), pages xiv-xv.
‘There are benefits to be obtained in this life beyond and above the mere accumulation of great riches, and I know no art which gives its votary a larger share of these than chess.’
Source: I.A. Gunsberg, Newcastle Courant, 9 March 1895, page 2.
‘I know well enough that no amount of argument will make the hardened game enthusiast see anything in problems to interest him. Still it is unfair to sneer at problems simply because you fail to see anything in them. Others do. I have a pet dislike myself – I can’t bear celery, and the fact that ten different people tell me that celery is very nice naturally avails me nothing. But I do not call these ten men names for liking celery.’
Source: P.H. Williams, Chess Chatter & Chaff (Stroud, 1909), page 56.
‘The days when my copies of Chess World arrive are red letter days. I still think it the best of all chess magazines and revel in every word of it.’
Source: H.J.R. Murray, Chess World, May 1955, page 98.
‘To annotate any game conscientiously it is necessary to accord it at least as much objective study as was expended by the players in the actual encounter.’
Source: I. König, Introduction to Nottingham, 1946 (Sutton Coldfield, 1946). See Chess Annotations.
‘In contrast to the wonderful books of previous World Champions, in my opinion the three-volume set of Botvinnik’s games is the first systemized work capable of giving a player a grandmaster understanding of the game. Botvinnik’s commentaries are so instructive, that for anyone wishing to become a grandmaster, I would recommend that in the first place they should study his works.’
Source: A. Belyavsky, Uncompromising Chess (London, 1998), page 11. C.N. 2254. See Mikhail Botvinnik.
‘A lot of these quotes about me are not correct.’
Source: R.J. Fischer, No Regrets by Y. Seirawan and G. Stefanovic (Seattle, 1992), page 117. See Instant Fischer.
‘Honesty and openness is always the best policy!’
Source: R. Keene, BCM, May 1986, page 208.
‘We have enjoyed the most friendly relations with Mr Steinitz and found him the very pink of honor, and the most jovial little fellow in the world, ready to fight you at chess, or die sooner than give up on some little etiquetical point that he considers correct and proper. His able management of the chess department of the London Field is gaining him a world-wide reputation as the analyst of the day.’
Source: S. Loyd, Scientific American Supplement, 17 November 1877, page 1556. C.N. 3397. See Wilhelm Steinitz Miscellanea.
‘Although his opening repertoire is not extensive [Barcza] has analysed those openings he does favour more thoroughly than any other master I know. He analyses these openings right through to the middlegame and, incredible as it may seem, to the very endgame itself. Barcza knows exactly what types of middlegames arise from his chosen openings and what types of endgames can be expected.’
Source: L. Steiner, Kings of the Chess Board (Roseville, 1948), page 44. C.N. 3098. See Chess Jottings.
‘She is without doubt a phenomenon. Her victory over Yates will be historical.’
Source: A. Alekhine on V. Menchik, The Observer, 3 June 1928, page 11. C.N. 8488. See Interviews with Alekhine.
‘It has always been my doctrine that chess is easier to play with many pieces than few; that ending play more strains the mind than a middle-game involvement. Of many options, one may be fit. Resource is likely to be present in a tangled, critical situation.’
Source: W.E. Napier, item 268 in Napier’s Amenities and Background of Chess-Play.
‘It’s frustrating to see the chess public being exposed to book after book written by people who are negligent, or lazy, or prejudiced in their research. An unsound rating system bestows the titles of Master or Grandmaster; knowledge of chess history, and of openings they don’t play, does not automatically accompany those titles. But are the writers any more to blame than the publisher? Or a reviewer in BCM who writes unthinking praise? Or a bookseller like the USCF that hypes the books it sells to its own members?’
Source: H.E. Myers, The Myers Openings Bulletin issue 39 (1988). C.N. 1629.
‘Lasker is the greatest player I ever met, perhaps the greatest that ever lived.’
Source: W. Steinitz, letter dated 17 December 1896, New York Daily Tribune, 3 January 1897, page 7 of part two. C.N. 6117.
‘If you keep yourself in good shape physically, and you keep in love with the game and keep studying, you should be a top player till you’re in your 60s.’
Source: R.J. Fischer in an interview with J. Burke, The Listener, 13 July 1972, pages 51-52. C.N. 9268. See Spassky v Fischer, Reykjavik, 1972.
‘I received more good ideas on opening and mid-game chess play from my old friend Frank Marshall than from all the other chessplayers I have known. If Marshall had had the urge to continue to apply himself to study and analysis he could have been at the top all his life. He was the greatest natural player of them all.’
Source: N.W. Banks, Banks’ Blindfold Checker Masterpieces (Philadelphia, 1947), page 7.
‘As practical play is the Prose, so is problem composition the Poetry of Chess, and a single problem of the modern school can be made to yield in its solution more of chess truth and beauty than an ordinary player will enjoy in a lifetime.’
Source: A.F. Mackenzie, Chess: Its Poetry and Its Prose (Kingston, 1887), page 3. C.N. 5290.
‘This turned out to be a terrible blunder, the worst of my career.’
Source: G. Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess (London, 2007), page 115. C.N. 5375. The reference is to his decision to break away from FIDE in 1993.
‘Nearly every one of the world’s leading violinists has been a chessplayer, and indeed, a majority of violinists of any note at all.’
Source: Chess World, May 1958, page 97. C.N. 3912. See Chess and Music.
‘One truth about chess is that memory is more likely to be a handicap than an advantage. There comes a stage in every game when the player has to find not what Botvinnik decided years ago but what he now is called upon to play. Then, if he has been too reliant on memory, he will fail to produce the ideas that constitute bright chess. The windows of his mind are curtained to exclude ideas from floating in. His vision will be limited because he has not sufficiently exercised it.’
Source: G. Abrahams, Encounter, March 1973, pages 84-90. C.N. 10497. See Memory Feats of Chess Masters.
‘Around six o’clock Capablanca came into the Club: he is an utterly irresistible person, lively, handsome, quick-witted, and – this is the point – a genius. You should have seen how quickly he showed up the mistakes of our Petersburg masters: on the spot, the instant their games were finished, and right in front of their very eyes! I was entranced.’
Source: S. Prokofiev, Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1907-1914 translated and annotated by A. Phillips (London, 2006), page 582. Diary entry dated 8 January 1914. C.N. 4927.
‘Of all the chief modern languages, English is perhaps the worst spoken and the worst written by educated people. It is written too often with an almost total disregard of euphony, elegance, and even grammar; and it is spoken mincingly or mouthingly, with countless horrible disfigurements. Why should not English be written with as much of precision and propriety and classical finish as French? Why should not Englishmen speak as accurately as Frenchmen? We need not, in England, as respects language, be apprehensive of becoming purists; the danger lies in the opposite direction. Pedantry in speech is an evil; barbarism in speech is a greater evil ...’
Source: H. Staunton, The Great Schools of England (London, 1865), pages xxxvi-xxxvii. See also Chess and the English Language.
‘Down with all nationalism in our old, noble, profound game.’
Source: Em. Lasker, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 12 June 1924, page A3. C.N.s 1158 and 8918. See also Patriotism, Nationalism, Jingoism and Racism in Chess.
‘One of the best excuses I ever heard was from a man who had just lost to a female opponent. “She completely disrupted my thought processes”, he complained. “Every time I tried to calculate something, I’d begin: ‘I go here, he goes there’, and then I’d have to correct myself: ‘No, it’s I go here, she goes there’.”’
Source: W. Hartston, Better Chess (London, 2003), page 52. C.N. 5884. See also Chess and Women.
‘That a richly endowed robot will one day be able to play a highly skillful game of chess leaves no room for doubt. On the other hand, in the absence of a fantastic superspeed electronic brain, the chess championship of the world is likely to be retained by humans for centuries to come.’
Source: I.A. Horowitz and P.L. Rothenberg, The Personality of Chess (New York, 1963), page 345. C.N. 4126. See also Chess and Computers.
‘Tempo is the soul of chess.’
Source: S. Tarrasch, Tarrasch’s Schachzeitung, 15 November 1933, page 56. See The Soul of Chess.
‘While these titanic struggles were in progress, a large muster of parents relaxed in the Tea Lounge. One lady, apparently discussing her daughter’s defeat on the previous day, uttered one of the most profound truths ever heard at a Chess Congress. “It seems”, she observed mysteriously, “that there are some positions you can’t get out of”.’
Source: G.H. Diggle, Newsflash, January 1985. C.N. 5016. In a report on a junior tournament held in August 1984.
‘Apart from the fact that, for instance, Nimzowitsch is very hostile to me and lately has not missed any opportunity to harm me, I cannot expect fair treatment at the hands of Alekhine, Spielmann or Vidmar. ... As far as Nimzowitsch is concerned, you know as well as I do that he, notwithstanding his fairly good results, is hardly a real grandmaster, so that I am really surprised that people make such a ridiculous fuss over him of late.’
Source: E. Bogoljubow, letter dated 7 December 1926 to J.R. Capablanca. C.N. 1999.
‘When, for instance, I am asked how many moves I think ahead, I must, if I am truthful, give the same answer as that of the celebrated Czechoslovakian player Richard Réti: “Not even one move.”’
Source: V. Menchik, Daily Mail, 5 August 1927, page 8. C.N. 9074. See How Many Moves Ahead?
‘In these rapid times, ostensibly intricate matters are not liable to much contradiction, even where there is more than a small suspicion of error; few who really examine them caring to openly dissent from the most doubtful conclusions, when these are cast in all the imposing dignity of print. Thus readers (and reviewers too) favour the temerity of authors, and help to mislead the public, including of course themselves – the simple, good-natured, omne-ignotum-pro-mirifico public; the great present and future public, which can never be too well or honestly served.’
Source: BCM, March 1899, page 99. C.N. 1414. See Reviewing Chess Books
‘J.N. Hanks recently made a thought-provoking remark. He said a player can have good luck in chess, but not bad luck.’
Source: Chess World, July 1959, page 167. See Luck in Chess.
‘To my mind the days of a small super class like Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine are gone for ever: these men were inventors. Now masters are merely technicians of varying skill and the question of the world title, which it would seem is causing some heart-burning, is really out of date.’
Source: E. Klein, The Anglo-Soviet Radio Chess Match co-written with W. Winter (London, 1947), page 43. C.N. 2293.
‘I like intricate, acute games, and it seems to me I have a common defect with Alekhine: we both dislike the strategy of waiting, and in tedious defensive positions we feel rather bored, and often play them badly.’
Source: P. Keres, Chess Review, March 1941, pages 51-53.
‘Against a wary chessplayer the possibilities of applied psychology by an opponent are very limited. The real psychological opponent of every player is himself.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, November 1957, pages 230-232. C.N. 10193. See Chess and Psychology.
‘The attack and defence emanating from this classical opening produce some of the most beautiful chess it is possible to obtain. The Queen’s Gambit possesses the merit of being the soundest of all the openings.’
Source: F.J. Marshall, Chess Openings (Leeds, 1904), page 25.
‘Journalism is the study of the irrelevant. Through that too bright glass, which when focused disturbs the concentrator on essentials as sorely as the television lights disturbed Bobby Fischer, everything trivial is aggrandized, everything insignificant given a value. Over there, at “the battle of Reykjavik”, there was no dearth of trivia. As Browning might have asked, “Who fished up that maroon suit? What breakfast had the Russ?” In that novel context a plethora of irrelevancies scattered itself around for grubmen to devour and regurgitate; just like mistakes on the chess board, waiting there to be made.’
Source: G. Abrahams, Encounter, March 1973, pages 84-90. C.N. 10497. See Spassky v Fischer, Reykjavik, 1972.
‘It is practically impossible nowadays to force a winning position with the black pieces against a player of master strength (even if not absolutely first-class standard) who is content to play for a draw.’
Source: A. Alekhine, CHESS, 14 September 1935, page 7. C.N.s 888 and 7178. See Chess Draws.
‘Although Lasker remained my idol, Capablanca’s games taught me technique and enabled me, at age 17, to become a master.’
Source: P. Benko, Winning with Chess Psychology by P. Benko and B. Hochberg (New York, 1991), page 157. C.N. 11221. See Pal Benko (1928-2019).
‘As I write these lines the newspapers are occupied by the exploits of a child of eight, who has just defeated 20 adult chessplayers in 20 games played simultaneously, and has been able afterwards to reconstruct all the 20 games without any apparent effort of memory. Most people, including myself, play chess (when they play it at all) from hand to mouth, and can hardly recall the last move but one, or foresee the next but two.’
Source: G.B. Shaw, Back to Methuselah. A Metabiological Pentateuch (London, 1921), page xxv. C.N. 5627. See The Chess Prodigy Samuel Reshevsky.
‘Before you stir your pieces, you ought to move your pawns, and afterward bring out your pieces to support them. …You are not, therefore, to play out any of your pieces in the early part of your game …’
Source: C.B. Rogers, How to Play Chess (New York, 1907), page 67. See Advice on Playing Chess.
‘... Weiller introduced a brilliant twist to the Walthier Variation of the Rook’s Gambit Declined and broke his defenses.’
‘The light from the fire reflected in his ruby episcopal ring as he moved his queen’s pawn to knight-five.’
Source: Provenance by F. McDonald (Boston, 1979), pages 3-4. See Chess and Fiction.
‘Mr Harrwitz sees everything without the board as well as most players with one.’
Source: H. Staunton, Chess Player’s Chronicle, 13 February 1847, page 49. See Daniel Harrwitz (1821-84).
‘There can be no doubt that the Grandmaster title is not what it was meant to be: an honor awarded to only the finest players in the world. An examination of the rating list shows that far too many of these “Grandmasters” are in fact remarkably weak: 56 of them are rated below 2450, the minimum rating required to obtain the title. A further dozen or more Grandmasters are inactive altogether. Grandmaster inflation is eroding the title’s value almost by the day. Something should be done about it urgently.’
Source: N. Short, Inside Chess, 9 October 1988, page 43. C.N. 1735. See also Chess Grandmasters.
‘[Chess Notes] benefits from a network of contributors worldwide, happy to do so in exchange for having their books promoted or just “seeing their name up in lights”.’
Source: T.D. Harding, British Chess Literature to 1914 (Jefferson, 2018), page 292.
‘What Mozart, as to innate, natural ability, was to music, Morphy likewise was to chess.’
Source: BCM, August -September 1884, page 305. See ‘The Mozart of Chess’.
‘A fianchetto bishop (at Kt2, behind a pawn at Kt3) owes its great strength to its being unapproachable by a knight.’
Source: One Hundred Chess Maxims by C.D. Locock (Leeds, 1930), page 16. C.N. 8720. See The Chess Fianchetto.
‘In fact, there are a quarter of a million chess friends who devote to chess at least two hundred hours every year, and of these only a thousand, after a lifetime of study, attain the end. Without losing myself in calculations, I believe I am safe in voicing the opinion that our efforts in chess attain only a hundredth of one per cent of their rightful result.’
Source: Em. Lasker, Lasker’s Manual of Chess (New York, 1927), page 369. C.N. 11196. See How Many People Play Chess?
‘Some simultaneous players pace from board to board as if engaged in a matter of life and death importance, and with a very serious – not to say sombre – funeral appearance. Not so Blackburne, for he contrives to make it a merry performance. He bubbles over with humour, he has flashes of fancy and plays off wit. He annotates each move as he goes along, and the annotations are calculated to make even the losing player laugh and be on good terms with himself. The player loses his game but does not lose his self respect; and this is important at chess. Blackburne has a delicate way of dealing with his opponents in simultaneous performances, and is not without a warm corner of estimation even for the despised “wood-shifter”.’
Source: BCM, July 1899, page 286. C.N. 4815. See Joseph Henry Blackburne and Chess and Woodshifting.
‘Great players never castle until the end of the game, and often never at all, as their king, although often in the middle of the board, nevertheless stands secure.’
Source: C.W. v Königstedt, Kort Afhandling om Schack-Spel (Stockholm, 1771), page 23. C.N. 3119. See Castling in Chess.
‘It is my considered opinion that Paul Keres is the greatest annotator who ever lived.’
Source: B. Hochberg, Chess Life, June 1969, pages 236-237. C.N. 11215. See Paul Keres (1916-75).
‘I also think that it is a chessplayer’s duty to update his older analyses and notes from time to time. This is necessary as it should not be permitted in any manner that the text or analyses contain obvious technical anachronisms or mistakes, as a consequence of the rapid development of theory and practice. Moreover, a reprint or a revised edition of a book can and should reflect the changes in the author’s chess ideology caused by his experience over the years. Neglecting these factors in my view reduces the significance of such books and curbs the development of chess.’
Source: G. Kasparov, New in Chess, 3/1987, pages 5-6. C.N. 1391. See also Chess Annotations.
‘Every match is preceded by scandalous situations. Some arise spontaneously, others are planned, but in general a match never comes off without them. Kasparov and I also tried to uphold the ancient tradition and toss the journalists some choice morsels.’
Source: A. Karpov, Karpov on Karpov (New York, 1991), page 213. C.N. 9345.
‘It has been truly said that Morphy was at once the Caesar and the Napoleon of chess. He revolutionized chess. He brought life and dash and beauty into the game at a time when an age of dulness was about to set in and he did this at a stroke. Then he quit forever. Only two years from the beginning to the end. The negotiations for some modern matches have taken that long!’
Source: J.A. Galbreath, American Chess Bulletin, October 1909, pages 219-224. See Paul Morphy.
‘Outside chess Norman was not very distinguished, being involved in too many things at and beyond the laws he studied.’
Source: J.E. Gates, obituary of N.T. Whitaker, Chess Life & Review, August 1975, page 521.
‘I believe my book Chess Strategy, the sale of which (between 40,000 and 50,000 copies) exceeded that of any other chess book, achieved its success solely because for the first time it offered the student a real theory of the game which they could apply to any position, according to their more or less thorough grasp of the general strategic principles explained in the book.’
Source: Ed. Lasker, Chess Correspondent, March-April 1943, page 7. C.N. 5172.
‘I feel Chigorin to be the strongest player alive, so far as match playing is concerned. I should not feel at all troubled if I had to meet either Steinitz, Lasker or Tarrasch in a set match. I fancy my chess is as good as theirs, and if I should not beat either of them I feel pretty certain of not being disgraced. Neither would I fear Chigorin, as I have a good deal of confidence in myself.’
Source: H.N. Pillsbury, New York Times, 29 September 1895, page 6. C.N. 7760. See also Mikhail Chigorin.
‘No writer of fiction ever penned so moving a chess story as this true one.’
See C.J.S Purdy, Chess World, 1 September 1946, page 161, concerning an article about Alekhine, ‘The Broken King’, by F. Lupi.
‘Chess is played on a squared board with 62 black and white alternating squares, each player set up there pieces so the light squares are on the right hand side ...’
Source: T. North: The Ultimate Chess Playing Guide (2015), page 2.
‘In truth, the only players whom we should consider grandmasters are Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, perhaps Marshall (if we wish to forget his misfortunes in match play) and, on account of their former successes, Tarrasch and Rubinstein. All the others should be regarded as plain masters.’
Source: E.A. Znosko-Borovsky: L’Echiquier, November 1925, pages 221-222. See also Chess Grandmasters.
‘… Schlechter was the one competitor who accepted all things and all arrangements with equanimity amounting almost to indifference. Everything was right for him and nothing amiss, and this man, who apparently paid such little regard to his interests, was the winner of the first prize. Schlechter also showed us the generous side of his nature by declining to compete for any of the brilliancy prizes, for which he undoubtedly would have had the best chance. “I have won enough”, he said. “Let others get something too”.’
Source: I. Gunsberg: The Year-Book of Chess, 1907 by E.A. Michell (London, 1907), page 19, concerning Ostend, 1906. See also Carl Schlechter.
‘In rook endings the weaker side generally has some chances of a draw right up to the very end.’
Source: S. Tarrasch: The Game of Chess (London, 1935), page 81. C.N. 5822. See also ‘All Rook Endgames are Drawn’.
‘Before making a move, note all the consequences.’
Source: B. Scriven: Chess and How to Play It (1930s), page 49. C.N. 1965.
‘Like other great masters, Pillsbury was hampered in the development of his chess talent by the fact that it was his only source of income and at his period there was not sufficient interest manifested in this country to guarantee a livelihood to a chess master. Therefore, it was a continual struggle for him to make both ends meet. Possessing a generous disposition and holding a just pride in his association with those more blessed with worldly goods, he never placed himself under the slightest obligation, though he lamented to me that the trophies won by him in tournaments and matches were one by one parted with for their intrinsic value to meet his actual necessities.’
Source: A.B. Hodges, American Chess Bulletin, May-June 1923, pages 90-91. C.N. 2304. See Chess and Poverty.
‘Paul Charles Morphy is the greatest chess player known to history, and it is doubtful if there will ever be a better one. ... What it does seem is that he defeated the game of chess.’
Source: R. Cantwell, Yesterday in Sports edited by J. Durant (New York, 1956), page 16. C.N. 17. See Hype in Chess.
‘Chess, if it has not been otherwise profitable, has procured me many a dear friend, but now my career is closed – I have ascended the ladder, and will not condescend to redescend it – so I give up chess altogether, go home and settle down into obscurity, which, if less conducive to renown and glory, is a great deal more so to health. When ambition is satisfied we look for something more solid and enduring. After years of indisposition and labour, I have at last discovered that I am “paying too much for my whistle”.’
Source: D. Harrwitz: letter dated 23 July 1854. BCM, May 1884, page 182. See also Retirement from Chess.
‘I was careful. At that time I was near to the master class as a chessplayer, and I played my whole life as a chess game. Nothing was left to chance. Nothing was risked if it could be calculated. Survival – survival was my law and my life, for I knew that if ever again I was taken inside the walls I would die swiftly.’
Source: J. Phelan, Tramp at Anchor (London, 1954), page 219, concerning his incarceration in Parkhurst Prison.
A pattern can be discerned which takes us to the heart of how Kasparov’s off-the-board career went off the rails and how his personal reputation slumped from unparalleled heights. Until the mid-1980s he was widely regarded as the unimpeachable golden boy of chess, the fresh newcomer/victim/anti-Communist who stood in such stark, attractive contrast to Karpov. Increasing shifts of opinion against Kasparov were detectable from 1985 onwards, but it was not until 1987, and the publication of his autobiography Child of Change, a deeply untrustworthy shambles, that the real deterioration in his public standing began.
Source: C.N. 3648 (written in 2005). See Reflections on Garry Kasparov.
‘Yates himself was not without certain heterodox opinions, one of which was a decided partiality for doubled pawns. “I have two doubled pawns, I must win”, was a common saying of his, and certainly he secured some surprising victories through the extra mobility which the breaking up of the pawn skeleton gives to the rooks.’
Source: W. Winter, One-Hundred-and-One of My Best Games of Chess by F.D. Yates (London, 1934), page 14. C.N. 1241. See The Death of F.D. Yates.
‘Half the time spent over delayed moves is due to mere hesitation, and not to profound consideration.’
Source: S. Tinsley (junior), Across the World (London, 1937). C.N. 8725.
‘90% of all [chess] match games, as well as international tournaments, are decided in the opening and middlegame, and it is indeed a rare occasion when a game is won by superlative endgame play.’
Source: N.W. Banks, Banks’ Blindfold Checker Masterpieces (Philadelphia, 1947), pages 13-18. C.N. 4550.
‘If one wishes to generalize one might say that as a rule it is towards his 45th year that an intellectual worker is most successful. In my own case it was not till 1930 that at long last I achieved a first prize in a big international tournament in which several great masters competed (at Liège).’
Source: S. Tartakower, My Best Games of Chess 1905-1930 (London, 1953), page xvii. C.N. 8876. See also The Peak Age for a Chessplayer.
‘If your opponent moves on the tortoise or slow principle, it is lawful for you to endeavour to quicken his motions by feigning to drop asleep, and then to wake up again with a terrific snore.’
Source: H.A. Kennedy, Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1845, page 111. See Chess and Sleep.
‘An Evans Gambit – even if declined and if the game itself is nothing wonderful – is always “news”. This is not only because of its romantic story but because it still stands as one of the few unrefuted genuine gambits.’
Source: C.J.S Purdy, Chess World, 1 April 1950, pages 90-91. C.N. 9332. See also The Evans Gambit.
‘Labor to be unremittingly facetious. Stale witticisms, wornout puns, and funny expletives are absolutely necessary in writing about chess. As the exponents of an art so philosophical and thoughtful as chess, you are of course supposed to be always grinning.’
Source: New York Saturday Press, 18 December 1858, page 3. See Advice for Chess Journalists.
‘There are no exclamation marks, as they serve no useful purpose. The best move should be mentioned in the analysis in any case; an exclamation mark can only serve to indicate the personal excitement of the commentator. I do not want to impose my feelings on the reader, and I leave it up to him when to feel amazed or thrilled, and when not.’
Source: R. Hübner, Twenty-five Annotated Games (Berlin, 1996), page 8. See Chess Punctuation.
‘Nimzowitsch’s immortal masterpiece. The greatest of all chess books, in the sense that it has, more than any other, really changed the methods of master players – and equally, of course, those of strong amateurs.
We all hear books described as “must” books, but this is the “must” book.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, 1 March 1949, page 62. See Nimzowitsch’s My System.
‘Chess must be established as a thoroughly straightforward and honest game first of all before it can be made a real gentlemanly one, and unscrupulous trickery, deception and fraud must be “warned off the track”. But it requires a strong arm to accomplish that, and war on dishonest chessists cannot be made with rose water ...’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, January 1887, page 22. See Chess Cunning, Gamesmanship and Skulduggery.
‘The art of chess is simple: you play Kt-B3-K5 and then, sooner or later, KtxKBP is decisive.’
Source: S. Tartakower, My Best Games of Chess 1931-1954 (London, 1956), page 61. C.N. 1485. See also A Knight on K5, K6 or Q6.
‘Probably more nonsense has been written about planning in chess than any other aspect of the game.’
Source: W. Hartston, Better Chess (London, 2003), page 28. C.N. 5844. See also Chess Planning.
‘If we were to accept the statements of translators we should believe that Adam and Eve, Solomon, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the inhabitants of America before the time of Columbus, all played chess. When a translator finds a game mentioned in the text he is translating, he naturally replaces its name by the name of a game which is familiar to his readers and which enjoys a like reputation. The serious historian has to go behind the translation to the original texts.’
Source: H.J.R. Murray, BCM, December 1933, pages 503-504. C.N. 11227. See also Pre-Chess Chess Quotes.
‘I would no more buy a chess book with the object of making myself a chessplayer than I would buy the poetical works of Shelley to make myself a poet. Call me a chess lover. That sums it up.’
Source: W.H. Cozens. Letter to us quoted in C.N. 821.
‘I play this move not that I like it, but because my opponent likes it less.’
Source: J.H. Blackburne, BCM, October 1904, page 406. C.N. 183. The move is 1 c4.
‘For a book like Treasure Chess it is not so easy to cite where all my references and impressions came from, so I’m not even going to try.’
Source: B. Pandolfini, Treasure Chess (New York, 2007), acknowledgements page. C.N. 5280.
‘Fairly tried and found wanting, the Sicilian has now scarcely any standing as a first-class defence.’
Source: J. Mason, The Art of Chess (London, 1895), page 296. See also Old Opening Assessments.
‘For a quarter of a century the only link between chess life in India and the rest of the world.’
Source: M.R. Parameswaran, CHESS, 30 November 1956, page 73, on T.A. Krishnamachariar.
‘Annotators who want to educate or entertain are not interested in tearing apart an instructive Morphy combination. Rather, they want to find characteristic errors in the opponents’ play, and they want the hero’s consequent victory to seem a matter of course (and the more elegantly achieved, the better). The effect of such presentations in countless beginner’s texts has been to reduce Morphy’s games to a collection of fables.’
Source: M. Shibut, Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory (Yorklyn, 1993), page 8. C.N. 1966. See Paul Morphy.
‘I am a member of the Communist Party – that is my choice – and I am aware that what I do is good for my country. I would fight for my country if that was necessary.’
Source: G. Kasparov, Sunday Times Magazine, 10 August 1986, page 50.
‘Mr Cochrane could have been the Philidor of the age; but would not. His ardent temperament, as a Chess-player, runs away with his judgment; disdaining to track a beaten path, even if certain victory present itself in the vista of the route. Mr Cochrane’s banner bears for its device, “Attack, attack”. – Attack at all risk – attack at every cost. Mr Cochrane is the most brilliant player I have ever had the honour to look over or confront; not even excepting De la Bourdonnais; and pity it is that his very brilliancy so often mars success.’
Source: G. Walker, Chess Studies (London, 1844), pages x-xi. See John Cochrane.
‘According to one source, Portisch announced ...’ ‘Last year there was an unconfirmed report that he was told ...’ ‘One version runs that ...’ ‘Since the funds of the GMA are reported as quite low ...’ ‘One report speaks of the possibility that FIDE may be conceded ...’ ‘There is a persistent account in master circles that ...’ ‘A recent German source claimed there was a strong movement ...’ ‘It is also said that the Polgars have ...’
Source: BCM, April 1989. See Rebuttals.
‘Normally it is considered that in order to play chess well you have to have some special gift of nature. I do not hold to this point of view. I consider that every person who sincerely loves chess, takes an intelligent attitude to the game and works at it, can achieve success.’
Source: A. Ilyin-Genevsky, Notes of a Soviet Master (Yorklyn, 1986), page 1. C.N. 1376. See Book Notes.
‘This Alekhine-Damiano-Evans combination is my discovery and makes all further study superfluous.’
Source: J. Krejcik, Artige und unartige Kinder der Schachmuse (Leipzig, 1925). C.N. 3305.
‘Greco was a man in an age of chess children. There never was, and never will be again, a player so far ahead of his time.’
Source: J.Silman, C.N. 6320.
‘If you have a good move, look out whether there is not a still better one.’
Source: P. Damiano, Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de le partite (Rome, 1512).
‘Almost impossible to beat but almost incapable of winning.’
(An observation on S. Flohr.) Source: The Groningen International Chess Tournament 1946 – analyses by M. Euwe commentaries by H. Kmoch (Sutton Coldfield, 1949), page 5. C.N. 7091.
‘I quote this passage [from the Munich, 1900 tournament book] with particular pleasure, not only for the sentiments expressed, but also in order to acquaint present-day players with the racy diction of the inimitable Georg Marco. It may give them an idea of how much they lose by notes in the ever-encroaching Informator style, through which the greatest entertainment ever invented is reduced to a series of mathematical symbols.’
Source: W. Heidenfeld, Draw! (London, 1982), page 21. C.N. 394. See Chess Draws.
‘It is clear now to many people that Fischer has a maniacal fear of beginning a competition.’
Source: M. Botvinnik, Achieving the Aim (Oxford, 1981), page 198. C.N. 442. See also Bobby Fischer Miscellanea.
‘Alekhine should have won the 1935 match; I should have won the 1937 match.’
Source: M. Euwe, Chess Life, April 1982, page 21. C.N. 442. Article by W. Meiden.
‘The best variation to use in a tournament is not a merely good line, but more exactly a line which, though good, is considered to be bad.’
Source: A. Nimzowitsch, Carlsbad International Chess Tournament 1929 (New York, 1981), page 64. C.N. 511.
‘I would never dream of using chessgames.com as a source for any kind of historical data.’
Source: T.D. Harding, English Chess Forum, 26 July 2013.
‘During the period from 1936 to 1975 he [Keres] was probably the strongest tournament player.’
Source: M. Botvinnik, Half a Century of Chess (Oxford, 1984), page 109. C.N. 863. See also Paul Keres (1916-75).
‘As is well known, I, in common with most connoisseurs, hold that general contests only furnish a very unreliable and much inferior test of strength in comparison to matches between two selected players.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, June 1886, page 170. C.N. 1075. See Steinitz Quotes.
‘It is also said that he still plays. Well, let him play, let him enter a tournament and let him play! For me, Fischer is no longer anything. He has gone into history. That is very interesting from the historical point of view, but Fischer means nothing more at all today!’
Source: G. Kasparov, L’Equipe magazine, 24 January 1987. C.N. 1354. See Kasparov Interviews.
‘As a general rule, a man whose business it is to sell news to the newspapers should, in my opinion, not be one vitally interested in this news. The public has a right to expect a reporter of events to be an impartial critic and chronicler, serving not his friends or his own interests, but the public.’
Source: Em. Lasker, American Chess Bulletin, January 1905, page 2. C.N. 1647. See also Chess Journalism and Ethics.
‘CHESS, an ingenious game, performed with different pieces of wood, on a board divided into sixty-four squares or houses; in which chance has so small a share, that it may be doubted whether a person ever lost but by his own fault.’
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1771. C.N. 6411.
‘In my opinion, the style of a player should not be formed under the influence of any single great master.’
Source: V. Smyslov, 125 Selected Games (Oxford, 1983), page 4. C.N. 502. See Vassily Smyslov 1921-2010.
‘I don’t think I have ever played a really good game, and maybe I shouldn’t want to either, because it doesn’t cause real pleasure.’
Source: J.H. Donner, Schaakbulletin 75/76 (March 1974) and page 193 of his book The King (Alkmaar, 1997). See Chess Jottings.
‘I myself have been travelling around the world for 20 years, and I have never met a chessplayer who would agree to join me for a visit to an art gallery.’
Source: A. Karpov, Karpov on Karpov (New York, 1991), page 58. C.N. 1941. See Karpov’s Writings.
‘Chess will, ere long, assume that well deserved rank among the useful sciences, to which its claim has been always admitted by genius and philosophy. Fathers of families should hail it as a powerful auxiliary in training their children to the pleasures of domestic life, by depriving them of all relish for those frivolous and exceptionable amusements, in which youth too frequently finds a vicious delight.’
Source: G. Walker, A New Treatise on Chess (London, 1833), page xii. See Chess Jottings.
‘He [Anderssen] was much the fastest tourney player I ever saw. He took little time over his moves, only once did I see him requiring about ten minutes.’
Source: F.K. Esling, Chess World, 1 October 1947, page 225. See Fast Chess.
‘In general one has to learn not to lose, and wins will then come of their own accord.’
Source: Anatoly Karpov: Chess is My Life by A. Karpov and A. Roshal (Oxford, 1980), page 59.
‘When we discovered André Chéron, in his earlier Traité complet d’échecs, we realized we had discovered the best writer on chess in the world, in the limited sense that he presented his material in the most orderly, lucid and logical way, and expressed his ideas in the clearest and simplest language. His neatness is almost Euclidean.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, May 1954, page 109.
‘The names of Philidor and La Bourdonnais are destined to an immortality as lasting as the game of Chess itself; and, if the fame of M. Des Chappelles should prove less enduring, it will not be from inferiority of genius, but the misfortune which has preserved for posterity so few of his remarkable achievements.’
Source: H. Staunton, Chess Player’s Chronicle, 27 November 1847, page 378. C.N. 7069.
‘He was a very great player. He was wonderful, but too deep for any mortal power. He had to fail in the execution of such difficult plans as he followed. That is why he finally was defeated by the younger masters.’
Source: F.J. Marshall, Lasker’s Chess Magazine, July 1906, page 126, concerning W. Steinitz.
‘If ever there was a game calculated to bring into prominent view the idiosyncrasies of individuals, it is chess. It shows up a man’s prevailing characteristics at times so plainly that he who runs may read. The faults of human nature, as shown in conceit, selfishness, obstinacy, ill-temper and meanness, are brought out into prominence in playing the game, as strikingly as are the virtues of humility, generosity, good temper, and a charitable consideration of your adversary’s weak points.’
Source: H. Chadwick, The Game of Chess (New York, 1895), page 9. See C.N.s 2342 and 8697.
‘It is a leading maxim of the modern school, that the bishops should, as far as possible, be kept in communication with both wings.’
Source: Chess Exemplified by W.J. Greenwell (Leeds, 1890), page 21. C.N. 2352.
‘A reviewer’s function is not to advertise the publishers’ wares but to give a frank, objective opinion upon a book; to offer constructive suggestions; to discourage careless writing, or indifferent supervision by the publisher; and, in general, to help in maintaining a high standard of book-production.’
Source: E.G.R. Cordingley, The Chess Students Quarterly, December 1947, page 174. See Reviewing Chess Books.
‘Writing has become the medium through which the expert can best make a contribution to chess; for in the playing arena destructive realism is often better rewarded than creativity.’
Source: P.H. Clarke, Chess (London and
Glasgow, 1967), page 143.
‘The greatest polyhistor in the history of chess.’
Source: W. Heidenfeld, BCM, August 1970, page 233, referring to Johann Berger. C.N. 2387.
‘Young players often proudly “invent” what was discarded a generation ago. Then they add another chapter to a very old story, fancying all the while that they have just stumbled across the plot of a new one.’
Source: Em Lasker, Lasker’s Chess Magazine, June 1908, page 43. C.N. 2455.
‘Staunton, perhaps, did not begin the “struggle for position” quite soon enough in his openings, relying rather on combination in the middle game; yet with his eminent grasp of the board as a whole he is at least the forerunner of the modern school.’
Source: W. Wayte, BCM, December 1899, pages 476-477. C.N. 2461. See also Howard Staunton and Hypermodern Chess.
‘I have always been an erratic player, even when I was at my best. At that time, when Marshall and myself entered a tournament, the general opinion was that we could as well finish at the top as at the tail of it.’
Source: J. Mieses, BCM, October 1944, page 232. C.N. 2486.
‘An eye for the microscopic betokens the master.’
Source: G. Marco, Der vierzehnte Kongress des Deutschen Schachbundes, E.V., Coburg 1904 (Leipzig, 1905), page 107. C.N. 8704.
‘Of good moves have no fear.’
Source: S. Tartakower, Deutsche Schachzeitung, December 1927, page 354. C.N.s 2513 and 11830.
‘To have a worthy opponent is a boon. He is short-sighted who strives for indisputable supremacy in his domain, whether at chess or other creative work. If, by ill-chance, he succeeds in approaching his stupid goal, he is blinded to his defects and deteriorates. When the outcome of tournaments is most uncertain and incalculable, as at present, then is chess passing through its most fertile periods.’
Source: Em. Lasker, CHESS, 14 May 1936, pages 357-358. Letter (Moscow, 23 April 1936). C.N. 2516.
‘The great masters are downright cruel to each other in the constant fury of their competitive fervor, so that (conservatively) 97% of what they say about each other may safely be tossed into the trash basket.’
Source: F. Reinfeld, Chess Review, July 1949, page 208. C.N.s 2533 and 8806.
‘When I play chess, I hardly ever calculate the play in detail. I rely very much on an intuitive sense which tells me what are the right moves to look for.’
Source: M. Najdorf, Chess Life, November 1962, page 256. C.N.s 2583 and 9826.
‘An obscure Indian from a Punjab village held his own with the best players in Europe without ever making a surprising move.’
Source: G. Abrahams, BCM, August 1952, page 223. C.N 2616. See Sultan Khan.
‘Some players talk a better game of chess than they play. In Young’s case the reverse was true.’
Source: I. Chernev and F. Reinfeld, The Fireside Book of Chess (New York, 1949), page 345. See Franklin Knowles Young.
‘It will never be possible to conduct the battle to the full satisfaction of the loser, who will always find some claim or other to make.’
Source: S. Tartakower, Ajedrez, January 1930, pages 1-4. See C.N. 2540.
‘Fritz Apšenieks was a brilliant chess tactician. He played very fast, but in complicated positions was always able to find the right move.’
Source: K. Ozols, letter to us in 1988. C.N. 1760.
‘He [Karpov] will go down in history as the man who avoided a match with Bobby Fischer and then eluded him for the next ten years.’
Source: L. Evans, Chess Life, March 1986, page 30.
Each of the three ‘Napoleon games’ conveniently comes with a nice story, but nice stories are not chess history.
Source: Napoleon Bonaparte and Chess.
‘There are people who beat you before the game begins by the confident way in which they arrange the pieces, by the authority with which they make a move, almost by the way they look out of the window or drum their fingers while they are waiting for you to play.’
Source: Sir John Simon, Comments and Criticisms (London, 1930), pages 280-285.
‘Burn this letter, Fiske, and forget the contents.’
Source: F.M. Edge, letter to D.W. Fiske, 25 March 1859. C.N. 1358. See Edge Letters to Fiske.
‘The less knowledge, the more certainty.’
Source: J. Gaige, autobiographical article, March 1988.
‘Once more I insist on repeating that which I have published on several occasions: that is, that the articles which were stupid and untrue from a chess point of view and which were printed signed with my name in a Paris newspaper in 1941 are a falsification.’
Source: A. Alekhine, ¡Legado! (Madrid, 1946), page xx. See Was Alekhine a Nazi?
‘Pirated music is looked at askance – why not pirated copies of chess games?’
Source: W.H. Watts, Chess Budget, July 1925, pages 213-214. See Copyright on Chess Games.
‘I like to see some evidence that the author has really done some work for his book. You see a lot of books these days where you think, “Well, did this take two weeks or two and a half weeks to write?”’
Source: J. Nunn, New in Chess, 1/1991, page 69. See also Historical Havoc.
‘In the many years that I have been associated with Mr Chess I have valued his friendship above all others. Besides helping me forget my troubles, fancied and real, he has led me into the circle of good fellowship the world over, to which only those who know him have entrée.’
Source: D.A. Mitchell, Mitchell’s Guide to the Game of Chess (Philadelphia, 1915).
‘It is useless to speculate how the man who was among the top players of the world for 50 years would have fared at the AVRO tournament. Had he been invited, he would have played. Lasker and I were good personal friends and he expressed bitter disappointment that he was not invited.’
Source: J. Platz, Chess Life, May 1969, page 194. C.N. 2430. See World Championship Disorder.
‘Looking back, I rarely recall vexations and disappointments. Compared with the joys which chess has generously given me, they are mere trifles.’
Source: T. Petrosian, The Games of Tigran Petrosian, Volume I, 1942-1965, compiled by Eduard Shekhtman (Oxford, 1991), page 216.
‘Zugzwang is the only kind of combination which doesn’t start with a threat, check or capture. Indeed, except when the motif of Zugzwang enters, every move by the attacker in every combination must be a threat, check or capture. That is why you can always say exactly when a combination begins and ends.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, 1 April 1949, pages 81-83. See Zugzwang.
‘A new young chess wizard has just burst into the news. Not an Esthonian but an Eskimo.’
Source: CHESS, 14 January 1938, page 156. Chess Prodigies logs many such alleged cases.
‘I deserved the critical reception of Child of Change. I was too light-hearted, I did it just in between, which was very bad.’
Source: G. Kasparov, New in Chess, 1/1990, page 49. C.N. 3027. See Kasparov’s Child of Change.
‘I have considered three fundamental prerequisites as absolutely essential to success: Firstly, self-knowledge; secondly, a firm comprehension of my opponent’s strength and weakness; thirdly, a higher aim – one that transcends momentary self-satisfaction. This aim I envisage in artistic and scientific accomplishments which accord our chess equal rank with other arts.’
Source: A. Alekhine, New York Times, 8 September 1929, pages 1-2 of the sports section. See Seven Alekhine Articles.
‘It is no easy matter to reply correctly to Lasker’s bad moves.’
Source: W.H.K. Pollock, BCM, September 1895, pages 396-397.
‘It is a curious fact that of the 26 competitors [at Carlsbad, 1911] no less than half were Jews. The rivalry on strictly logical lines characterizing the game of chess, and the scope for ingenuity it affords make, we fancy, a special appeal to the Jewish temperament. Anyway, in a considerable experience we hardly remember to have met a single individual of that race who did not display at least some intelligent appreciation of the game.’
Source: BCM, October 1911, page 369. See Chess and Jews.
‘Playing in an international chess tournament requires as much physical endurance as a six-day bicycle race.’
Source: C. Jaffe, Baltimore Sun, 2 March 1924, page 4, part 1, section 2. See also Chess in 1924.
‘And still chess is as much a mystery as women.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Australasian Chess Review, 20 January 1938, page 5. See also Chess and Women.
‘The Rou MS is one of the most mysterious things in chess and, if true, was one of the greatest treasures.’
Source: J. Keeble, American Chess Bulletin, September-October 1933, page 138. See A Chess Whodunit.
‘James Mason’s true name was neither James nor Mason. His real name was confided to me years ago, as it were, sub sigillo confessionis.’
Source: R.J. Buckley, Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 15 April 1905, page 25.
‘More silly things are written about chess than about any other game I know.’
Source: B.H. Wood, Illustrated London News, 24 September 1955, page 540. C.N. 10319. See also A Non-Existent Blindfold Chessplayer. (Former title: A Chess Hoax.)
‘Abroad one can become quite friendly through chess – with people who cannot exchange a word with you – a universal Esperanto.’
Source: R.C. Macdonald, BCM, January 1932, page 5. Chess and Esperanto.
‘When chessplayers go to law on some matter connected with the game, there is usually a touch of the ridiculous.’
Source: BCM, June 1916, page 200. C.N. 1105. See Chess in the Courts.
‘This is by far the finest and most artistic queen sacrifice that I have ever seen.’
Source: A. Denker, Chess Review, February 1935, page 27. C.N. 6984. See Marshall’s ‘Gold Coins’ Game.
‘No Englishman has yet attained, or probably ever will attain, to the eminence of chess champion of the world. … The deep-thinking German, the brilliant Frenchman and the versatile American have always been too much for sober, stolid John Bull.’
Source: G.H.D. Gossip, Columbia Chess Chronicle, 29 December 1888, pages 218-229.
‘I have always shown fight ultimately, and I fought with my pen soundly and on principle, free from delusions and deceptions, just like on the chess board.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, July 1886, page 203.
‘The sporting performances were falsified by the inevitable physical fatigue of the players, who were taken on a danse macabre, from one Dutch town or city to another (in the case of AVRO) like exhibition objects or low-grade fighters.’
Source: A. Alekhine, ¡Legado! (Madrid, 1946), pages 187-189.
‘The stalemate is the punishment for mauling without killing.’
Source: P. Hamburger, New Statesman and Nation, 30 July 1949, page 133. See Stalemate.
‘My first principle was that it should look childishly easy, my next, but still more important, was that an examination of it should make it appear entirely impossible, and then if I could add a little humour to the situation I was content.’
Source: Lord Dunsany (on composing a chess problem), While the Sirens Slept (London, circa 1945), page 64.
‘The history of chess is largely a chronicle of self-imposed intimidation and untimely excitement.’
Source: W.E. Napier, CHESS, February 1939, page 180.
‘I have my misgivings, I cannot contend against such forebodings, one Boden is too much for me.’
Source: H.E. Bird, Chess History and Reminiscences (London, 1893), page 120. See Chess Corn Corner.
‘Mr Bird is about the only player of note who now believes in the Sicilian.’
Source: J. Mason, BCM, October 1892, page 439. See also Old Opening Assessments.
‘There is no other game so esteemed, so profound and so venerable as chess; in the realm of play it stands alone in dignity.’
Source: E. Culbertson, A.H. Morehead and G. Mott-Smith, Culbertson’s Hoyle (New York, 1950), page 341. C.N. 6060.
‘The positions which arise in the Rice Gambit give difficult problems to both the first and second player and lend themselves therefore to as fine strategy as a chessplayer might wish to see. The Rice Gambit will ever be a valuable asset for the analyst, the player and the student.’
Source: Em. Lasker, The Rice Gambit (New York, 1910), page 6. See Professor Isaac Rice and the Rice Gambit.
‘A man who is known as the least bookish of all international players.’
Source: F.J. Marshall, Marshall’s Chess “Swindles” (New York, 1914). Self-description. C.N. 2149. See The Marshall Gambit.
‘It has been said of Fischer that when he began to study an adjourned game he would always first ensure that he had at least a draw. I do not believe it, because often it is much more difficult to check for drawing lines than to look for winning chances.’
Source: B. Larsen, Ajedrez de Estilo, February 1984, page 239.
‘Chess, on the contrary [unlike billiards], I urge pupils to learn, and enjoy it myself, to the point of its becoming a temptation to waste of time often very difficult to resist; and I have really serious thoughts of publishing a selection of favourite old games by chessplayers of real genius and imagination, as opposed to the stupidity called chessplaying in modern days. Pleasant “play”, truly! in which the opponents sit calculating and analysing for 12 hours, tire each other nearly into apoplexy or idiocy and end in a draw or a victory by an odd pawn.’
Source: J. Ruskin, letter in the Daily Telegraph, 6 June 1884. BCM, July 1884, page 286. C.N. 4045.
‘All great Masters can conceive great and brilliant combinations, but not all of them are creative in that line. Steinitz’s superiority was based on his philosophy of chess.’
Source: Em Lasker, letter in the BCM, November 1933, pages 464-465. See Dr Lasker’s Chess History.
‘“The principles” and “the modern school”, as far as their development is demonstrated in my book, belong to me and nobody else.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, January 1890, page 10. C.N. 1635. See Steinitz, Lasker, Potter and ‘Modern Chess’.
‘The multiplication of grandmasters already calls for the creation of a new supermaster class – the dozen or so with legitimate pretensions to a world title match.’
Source: W.H. Cozens, BCM, April 1976, page 161. C.N. 2010. See also Chess Grandmasters and Chess Ratings.
‘In truth, man’s mind is as nothing compared to inspiration – the devine [sic] Grace which can and does operate in chess wherever the superbly trained ego can relax into love of God.’
Source: A.E. Santasiere, Essay on Chess (Dallas, 1972), page 8.
‘I ought to mention the Vienna Gambit Tournament even if it is only for a good epigram made by Mieses. He was one of the few against whom I scored. The poor man afterwards said: “It is bad enough to get run over, but to get run over by a corpse is horrible.” (This refers to my low score.)’
Source: I. Gunsberg, Chess Pie, 1922, pages 76-77. C.N. 3089. See also Jacques Mieses and Chess Anecdotes.
‘He was undoubtedly the laziest man that ever lived. Many of his games are unbearably lethargic, but when the slumbering chess genius of Teichmann roused itself he was capable of superhuman achievements.’
Source: H. Kmoch and F. Reinfeld, Chess Review, October 1950, pages 299-300. C.N. 6620. See Richard Teichmann.
‘He has not learned yet to sacrifice his opponents’ pieces instead of his own.’
Source: M. Vidmar, on an unnamed player at London, 1922. Reported by J.R. Capablanca in the New York Times, 16 February 1927, page 1.
‘Chessplayers have unpleasant characteristics. They are (to a degree, of course) proud, argumentative, over-cautious and deceitful. That the chessplayer has a certain amount of pride is not his fault; so long have the non-playing public bowed down to the graven image of Caissa that the initiated were bound sooner or later to feel their supposed superiority, and become over-bearing. As to their deceitfulness, this undoubtedly comes from the chessplayer’s habit of continually laying traps for his opponents – he has an itch to mate somebody on the mosaic of life. Chess is an ideal school for politicians and other word fighters; and those who have been brought up in the school readily grasp the vital points of an argument, which vital points – the problemists especially – they are over-keen to drive to a definite end.’
Source: N. Alliston, BCM, January 1901, pages 2-4. See Bribery in the Chess World.
‘Botvinnik and Tal are among the best; I also like Spassky, but I think Petrosian is better than all of them.’
Source: R.J. Fischer, Ajedrez Español, July 1961, pages 646-648. See C.N. 3347 and A Fischer Interview. (The question was: ‘Who is currently the strongest player?’)
‘Botvinnik, like many of his countrymen, often handles the opening very poorly with White, in sharp contrast to the complicated and ingenious defenses he frequently thinks up with Black.’
Source: R. Fine: Lessons from My Games (New York, 1958), page 83. C.N. 593. See also Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-95).
‘When the International Chess Federation becomes an accomplished fact, one of its most important duties will be to formulate the conditions under which the Championship shall be fought for in future – conditions not varying according to the caprice of the holder at any particular time, but carefully and fairly drawn up and universal in their application.’
Source: BCM, August 1920, pages 234-235. See FIDE: The Prehistory.
‘Chess in the Soviet Union has ceased to be a game but is planned, directed, ordered by Communist super-brains. Many, no doubt, will appreciate this state support for their favourite game, but I, as a lover of chess, prefer to play when I want to, not when I am ordered by officials. To me, chess is only a beloved hobby, and I am not happy to see it become a matter of high policy.’
Source: F. Bohatirchuk, CHESS, July/August/September 1949, pages 232-233. See Pachman, Bohatirchuk and Politics.
‘He radiated more animal magnetism than any person I ever met.’
Source: S. Bernstein on Capablanca. Letter to us dated 17 April 1987.
‘The game of chess must, I think, have pride of place in this collection of indoor games. No other indoor game is played with the same expertise and concentration throughout the civilized world. No other game has anything approaching its vast literature ...’
Source: H. Phillips, Indoor Games For Two Players (London, 1961), page 11. C.N. 3576.
‘Pillsbury is a slim young man with lively, intelligent eyes, and a pale, clean-shaven face which has a sad, resigned air, as if chess were an extremely painful task for him.’
Source: ‘André de M.’: La Stratégie, 15 July 1899, pages 210-213. See C.N. 2637, as well as London, 1899 Pen-portraits and Harry Nelson Pillsbury.
‘Though he was never recognized an International Grandmaster, he was truly the Grand Master of them all.’
(An observation on H. Helms.) Source: W. Lombardy, Chess Life, February 1963, page 31. C.N. 10788.
‘It is better never to make any excuse whatever after losing – apologizing for your bad play in such terms as “darkness”, “rust”, “single oversight”, “that one slip”, “headache”, “dizziness”, “thinking of other things”, “bad men and board”, etc., etc., etc. will only make your opponent laugh in his sleeve, or hypocritically condole with you.’
Source: S.S. Boden, A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess (London, 1851), page 25. C.N. 10087. See Excuses for Losing at Chess.
‘Ours is no age for a universal genius, but Fred Reinfeld offers us a close approximation of the ideal. The quality and quantity of his books made him not only the finest chess author of his day, but also the leading writer on chess in the entire history of the game.’
Source: M.W. Sullivan, Beginners’ Guide to Winning Chess by F. Reinfeld (Chicago, 1964), pages 7-8. C.N. 6585. See Hype in Chess.
‘The object of the game is, of course, to checkmate the King, and before the first move, the player should determine in his own mind how he is going to do it and then develop the fighting qualities of his men accordingly.’
Source: C.B. Rogers, How to Play Chess (New York, 1907), page 67. See Advice on Playing Chess.
‘I am so grateful to you, but I do not feel youthful. The day before yesterday I was 51, and next year I shall be 54.’
Source: C.N. 10240. See also Chess Puzzles.
‘When Fine switched his major interest from chess to psychoanalysis, the result was a loss for chess – and a draw, at best, for psychoanalysis.’
Source: G. Cant, Time, 4 September 1972, pages 44-45. C.N. 6090. See also Reuben Fine, Chess and Psychology.
‘Very rarely do we now meet with this defence. Its appearance is as the trotting out of an old Derby favourite years after being backed for the blue ribbon. We confess to a sense of refreshment at any break in the monotonous reiteration of P to QR3.’
Source: W.N. Potter, City of London Chess Magazine, July 1874, pages 144-146. C.N. 9866. See The Berlin Defence (Ruy López).
‘It seems only just that English should contribute its bit to the nomenclature of chess and we hope Mr Pennell’s name will be associated in perpetuity with this useful addition to the chessplayer’s vocabulary.’
Source: CHESS, 14 February 1939, page 212. C.N. 3061. See The Chess Skewer.
‘Probably the largest crowd that has ever witnessed a chess fight assembled to witness the closing game of the contest between Chigorin and Steinitz at Havana on 28 February. It is estimated that about 1,900 people were present at the Centro Asturiano during the progress of that game.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, December 1891, page 370. See Crowds at Chess Events.
‘It was stated somewhere or other the other day that Miss Rudge might probably play a match with the Championess of the United States.’
Source: Chess Player’s Chronicle, February 1875, page 197. C.N. 10799. See also Chess: the Need for Sources.
‘The Daily Express gave one mention to the congress, reporting that A.T. Watson in making a move, split his trousers.’
Source: CHESS, 26 January 1963, page 99 (report on Hastings, 1962-63). C.N. 10794. See also Chess as Front Page News.
‘What if you do not know ten lines of chess history? What if you are utterly ignorant of its entire annals from the age of its Sanscrit origination down to the days of its American burglars? What if you are a fourth rate player, and cannot see through a combination of two moves? What if you are not able to put together a single sentence of clear English? All this does not matter so long as you unblushingly ignore all your deficiencies, and, with brazen front, talk loudly of your chess knowledge and general accomplishments.’
Source: New York Saturday Press, 18 December 1858, page 3. See Advice for Chess Journalists.
‘The book shows Fischer as superhuman, subhuman and normally human (whatever that is) in different proportions at different times.’
Source: B. Darrach, New York Times Book Review, 23 February 1975, page 41 and Chess Life & Review, May 1975, page 299. See Brad Darrach and the Dark Side of Bobby Fischer.
‘I like to find instances where the annotators make mistakes. The armchair critics, as I like to term them, are always looking to criticize the players; in doing so, they very often make laughable mistakes themselves.’
Source: A.C. Simonson, CHESS, December 1950, pages 58-59. C.N. 3767. See also Harry Golombek’s Book on Capablanca.
‘To win, one must have a touch of the larcenist in his heart, the actor in his soul, the picaroon in his psyche, and the cozener in his brain.’
Source: J. Sohl, Underhanded Chess (New York, 1973), page 6. C.N. 1263. See also Chess Cunning, Gamesmanship and Skulduggery.
‘Ståhlberg, the Swedish veteran, is an extremely tough opponent. His strength lies in his stubborn defense. He does not take any unnecessary chances. His objective is to draw. His style is similar to that of Eliskases. Both are difficult to defeat.’
Source: S. Reshevsky, How Chess Games are Won (London, 1962), page 31. C.N. 3056. See also Chess and Ghostwriting.
‘Once the Soviet Chess Federation had failed in its attempt to exclude me from the world championship (a service for which I have President of the World Federation Dr Euwe to thank) the press couldn’t cope with having to report my candidates’ matches with Petrosian, Polugayevsky and Spassky. I was never named, and referred to only as “the challenger”, but of course people knew who I was and what the news “Polugayevsky played poorly against the challenger” meant.’
Source: V. Korchnoi, interview with R. Forster, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 March 2001, page 57 and Kingpin, Autumn 2001, pages 15-18. C.N. 8384. See also Patriotism, Nationalism, Jingoism and Racism in Chess.
‘From the time of al-Ma’mūn onwards, the writings of the more famous Greek philosophers became known to the Muslim world in translation. It was, perhaps, inevitable that the scattered allusions to the Greek board-games which occur in Plato and other writers should be misapplied to chess, but to this we owe the statements in H and later chess books that Aristotle, Galen and Hippocrates were also chessplayers.’
Source: H.J.R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), page 219. C.N. 5655. See Pre-Chess Chess Quotes.
‘The ordinary beginner’s book plunges into a slough of dull verbiage. But how can you explain chess without words? Well, the miracle has been accomplished as far as is humanly possible in Invitation to Chess by Kenneth Harkness and Irving Chernev.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, 1 June 1948, page 140. C.N. 9212. See also Irving Chernev and Chess Book Sales.
‘I have a strong tendency to look at crazy things first. When promoting a pawn I prefer a bishop to a queen if that is possible.’
Source: T. Miles, New in Chess, 4/1984, pages 6-8. C.N. 8247. See also Underpromotion in Chess.
‘Never resign just to show you can see your opponent’s threats.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess World, 1 April 1949, page 92. C.N.s 6884 and 11430. See also Resgination in Chess.
‘The chess problem can be studied as a science and practised as an art.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, January 1964, page 18.
‘Chess is a complicated game. But in positions where everything is forced – one move, one answer – I can calculate something between ten and fifteen moves ahead. But that happens very rarely. Usually, the positions are more complicated than that – one move, then five answers, each of them having five answers. You have to use your intuition in cases like that, your positional understanding. It’s very good if you can calculate five, six, maybe seven moves ahead.’
Source: G. Kasparov, Playboy, November 1989, page 64. C.N. 1995. How Many Moves Ahead?
‘His need to disguise his internal Regina affected chess and life. On the board it was first expressed in the queen sacrifice. The historic move paralleled his ego-ambition to deny identification with his mother, simultaneously symbolizing a refusal to accept the option of homosexuality, and a defiant rejection of infantile dependence. A reversal of usual chess practice, it paralleled a reversal he was trying to bring about with himself.’
(An observation on Fischer.) Source: P. Fuller, The Champions (New York, 1977), page 81. C.N. 3100. The Byrne v Fischer ‘Game of the Century’.
‘Perhaps the most important advice is that if you can’t think of a good plan, at least don’t play a bad one.’
Source: J. Nunn, Understanding Chess Middlegames (London, 2011), page 53. C.N. 9201. See also Chess Planning.
‘The normal plagiarist is rarely, if ever, master of his subject so he painstakingly copies down what lies before his eyes, including printers’ errors.’
Source: E.G.R. Cordingley, Chess Students Quarterly December 1951, page 481. C.N. 9686. See The Chess Writer P. Wenman and Copying.
‘I do not hold much of those chess brothers who refrain from the smoking of tobacco. These non-smoking gentlemen are usually hard-thinking, uncomfortable antagonists. They are apt to play woodenly, and become somewhat impatient between the moves. Cigars, I somehow fancy, will give a deep and rather technical game. Cigarettes will tend to make the encounter sprightly or boisterously reckless.’
Source: N. Alliston, BCM, January 1901, pages 2-4. See Chess and Tobacco.
‘Think strategies when it’s your opponent’s turn to move; sort out the tactics while your own clock is running.’
Source: W. Hartston, Better Chess (London, 2003), page 50. C.N. 5884. See also Chess Strategy and Tactics.
‘Beginning with the Preface, I think I must congratulate the author upon its brevity. Prose composition is evidently not his strong point, and therefore he is wise not to attempt much in that line.’
Source: W.N. Potter, Huddersfield College Magazine, February 1879, page 129, in a review of Chess Chips by J. Paul Taylor (London, 1878). C.N. 9376. See Reviewing Chess Books.
‘A German wit in fact once wrote a book entitled Instructions to Spectators at Chess Tournaments. The book consisted of three hundred blank pages and one other page on which was written: KEEP QUIET.’
Source: R. Fine, Bobby Fischer’s Conquest of the World’s Chess Championship (London, 1975), page 79. See A Fictitious Chess Book and ‘Once’.
‘We had expected Fischer to come loping out of a corner on all fours, frothing at the mouth, bandages hiding the wounds from which surgeons had extracted his horns. He turned out to be a lean, gangling, engaging man wearing an uncontroversial green suit and matching tie.’
Source: C. Freud, A feast of Freud (London, 2009), pages 161-166. Reproduced from the Financial Times, 8 July 1972. C.N. 7659. See Spassky v Fischer, Reykjavik, 1972.
‘The values of the pieces calculated with sufficient accuracy for over the board play are as follows: pawn, 6; knight, 17; bishop, 17; rook, 24; queen, 47.’
Source: Em. Lasker, Lasker’s Chess Magazine (signed article), August 1905, page 189. C.N. 8859. See The Value of the Chess Pieces.
‘Since Jesus Christ, many illustrious figures have dedicated part of their time to the game of chess.’
Source: A Gromer, Les échecs par la joie (Brussels, 1939), page 5. C.N. 10154.
‘In my opinion the term “hypermodern game” is nothing but an empty word devoid of sense.’
Source: B. Kostić, Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten, October 1925, page 441. See Hypermodern Chess.
‘In chess one deals with a cross-section of people. I played with a gardener and I played with Marcel Duchamp and Prokofiev.’
Source: J. Piatigorsky, Jump in the Waves (New York, 1988), page 135. C.N. 5432.
‘Chess rules need revision, indeed, if Black must resort to the double “fianshutyourpiecesin” defense.’
Source: C.S. Howell, American Chess Bulletin, December 1924, page 217. See The Chess Fianchetto and Chess in 1924.
‘Most chessplayers slowly climb to a certain rather low level and stay there.’
Source: Em. Lasker, Lasker’s Manual of Chess (New York, 1927), page 368. C.N. 11147. See How Many People Play Chess?
‘The journalists would constantly turn to the ex-world champion: “Tigran Vartanovich, what should be played here?” “When I knew that, I was down on the stage, instead of up here”, was Petrosian’s joking reply.’
Source: A. Karpov and A. Roshal, Anatoly Karpov: Chess is My Life (Oxford, 1980), page 166. C.N.s 13 and 8410.
‘In every phase he performed the most wonderful feats; for example, winning an endgame of two rooks and two pawns apiece even though his opponent, Denker, had the advantage of a dangerous, passed pawn. “Are you playing to win?”, Denker asked. “The position plays for a win”, Tartakower replied in his peculiar, mystic style. He continued the game and won, unendangered.’
Source: M. Euwe, Chess Review, April 1956, pages 106-107. C.N. 2605. See also Savielly Tartakower.
‘I have met chess players whom I have heard others praise, and that highly – not to speak it profanely – for their gentle ways and winning politeness. But I have noticed that these same lamb-like woodshifters are not usually endowed in the same degree with losing politeness, and plainly show their antipathy to being beaten across the board.’
Source: J. Mortimer, BCM, August 1905, pages 291-297. C.N. 11252.
‘Chess has been subjected to several myths which need puncturing. One of the most prevalent is that some people become chess addicts, neglecting wife, children, job. I have played chess and known chessplayers for 35 years, and have not yet come across an instance of this kind.’
Source: F. Reinfeld, The Secret of Tactical Chess (New York, 1958), pages 1-2. C.N. 7960.
‘I do not know any other of my important games which so well illustrates the principle of effective hindrance of the adversary’s forces, while at the same time securing the mobility of one’s own forces.’
Source: A. Nimzowitsch, Chess Masterpieces by F.J. Marshall (New York, 1928), page 6. On Nimzowitsch v Rubinstein, Dresden, 1926. See The Best Chess Games.
‘Chess writers have a positive duty to be unkind about players who retire from tourneys or matches without the excuse of death or serious illness. Let every player realize that his retirements will be remembered long after his defeats are forgotten, and there will be few retirements.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, Chess Life, 20 November 1957, page 7.
‘Strategy is a feature, albeit unobserved, of most good tactical play. It is latent – not patent.’
Source: G. Abrahams, The Handbook of Chess (London, 1965), page 152. C.N. 8833. Chess Strategy and Tactics.
‘By the middle ’90s everybody was sacrificing queens quite joyfully.’
Source: C. Chepmell, BCM, January 1931, page 11. C.N. 1315. Queen Sacrifices.
‘The late Mr T.A. Krishnamachariar ... was for a quarter of a century the only link between chess life in India and the rest of the world. By his devoted service he made the Hindu chess column world-famous. But his greatest contribution to chess was the unification of chess life in India and the popularization of the international rules of the game, which are now almost universally accepted in India.’
Source: M.R. Parameswaran, CHESS, 30 November 1956, page 73. C.N. 3391. Two Indian Chess Figures.
‘If the game is opened well, the middle game will largely take care of itself.’
Source: B. Scriven, Chess and How to Play It (1930s), page 50. C.N. 1965.
‘Always unpin.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy: Chess World, September-October 1967, pages 134-136. C.N. 9702. See also The Chess Pin.
‘It will be an achievement not to be last.’
Source: P. Keres: CHESS, 14 November 1938, page 82. C.N. 7400. Written before the start of the AVRO tournament.
‘No first move can be bad.’
Source: C.R. Gurnhill, Chess Amateur, March 1927, pages 165-166. C.N. 11782. See Unusual Chess Openings.
‘All in all Akiba Rubinstein played 1985 tournament games in his life, of which 1763 had rook endgames.’
Source: C. Hesse, The Joys of Chess (Alkmaar, 2011), page 399. C.N. 7083. The remark, obviously untrue, was a joke by I. Chernev.
‘That a piece of information appears in print is beginning to be regarded as pretty good evidence of its incorrectness.’
Source: D.W. Fiske, Syracuse Journal, 22 June 1865. C.N. 3440. Reprinted in Memorials of Willard Fiske by H.S. White (Boston, 1920), pages 226-228.
‘I have met many who care very little for the ordinary problem; I have never known any who were not overjoyed and bewitched by endings.’
Source: R. Fine: Chessboard Magic! by I. Chernev (New York, 1943), Introduction, pages v-vii. See also Chess Problems.
‘Three diagonals, one for the queen and two for the bishops, are worth a pawn.’
Source: J.W. Collins, Maxims of Chess (New York, 1978), page 57. C.N. 8735.
‘I am one of those unlucky skeptics who never overlook the dark side of even the happiest experience.’
Source: S. Tartakower, Chess Review, June 1951, page 170. C.N. 2685.
‘Knights can do a great deal of damage which is only apparent when it is done.’
Source: B. Scriven: Chess and How to Play It (1930s), page 41. C.N. 1965.
‘The kind of historical-biographical chess writing which essentially consists of snippets (even if they are arranged into “threads”) cannot in the end make any great contribution to chess history, consisting as it largely does of minor corrections to the record, a bit of debunking, a lot of hobby-horse-riding, some settling of scores and the occasional answer to readers’ questions.’
Source: T. Harding, column at the Chess Café, October 2005.
‘If a reviewer spends all of an hour nowadays reading the book he is supposed to be reviewing, he feels that he has done more than his duty. This is particularly unfortunate in the field of chess, in which it often requires years to write a good book.’
Source: F. Reinfeld, Chess Review, March 1951, page 96. C.N. 3779. See also Reviewing Chess Books.
‘Loyd’s problems constantly remind us of Mozart’s music: there is the same lack of everything commonplace, forced or manufactured; the same feeling, within us, that these productions, as it were, composed themselves.’
Source: Dubuque Chess Journal, September 1875, page 363. C.N. 7662. See ‘The Mozart of Chess’.
‘Fischer, as is widely known, is not merely a megalomaniac but also a monomaniac; all the kilowattage of that 187-IQ brain has been channelled into the game, leaving aside almost everything else in the spectrum of life’s experiences. He is a chess phenomenon, it is true; but he is also a social illiterate, a political simpleton, a cultural ignoramus and an emotional baby. There are no vibrations of humanity from him; when you look at him, his eyes are blank and unstaring, since he only has eyes for chess. He is a machine.’
Source: M. Kenny, Evening Standard, 28 July 1972, page 17. C.N. 9146. See also Spassky v Fischer, Reykjavik, 1972.
‘History neither lies nor forgets. Nobody could chronicle Paul Morphy’s feats in future ages without giving me my due.’
Source: F.M. Edge, letter to D.W. Fiske, 7 November 1859. C.N. 3396. See Edge Letters to Fiske.
‘It is my opinion that already nowadays the standard of the art of chess is so high, that a considerable advance from the theoretical point of view seems to be hardly possible. I doubt if there will appear any modern Philidors and Steinitzes preaching new ideas in chess. Should the grandmasters of future times be better than ours, it would be probably only for their superior technique. Thus even for the leading masters of the modern generation there is little left for improvement, since they are no doubt much nearer to their culmination than my generation had been when at the same age.’
Source: J. Mieses, BCM, November 1939, pages 467-468. C.N. 2675.
‘Losing a game that should have been won makes a difference of two points.’
Source: S. Alapin, La Stratégie, March 1905, page 77. C.N. 2444.
‘If I appear a poor encomiast, it is because in reviewing a book I judge whether, within the compass of its pages and its title, the author has made the most of the material available and presented a balanced, interesting work; but I am not content with a book being merely good, and interesting, and competent – I must ask myself in what way might it be better, more interesting, more enlivening to the curious, inquisitive, seeking mind of an intelligent chess player.’
Source: E.G.R. Cordingley, The Chess Students Quarterly, December 1947, page 174. See Reviewing Chess Books.
‘In the eager desire for victory in a contest in which one’s mental power is brought into play, and in a game in which the element of chance is entirely eliminated, a man is apt to exhibit his prominent traits of character very plainly at times.’
Source: H. Chadwick, The Game of Chess (New York, 1895), page 9. See C.N.s 2342 and 8697.
‘If anybody attempts to introduce a great chess reform, based upon experience or study, treat it with sneers and jeers. It is not your business of course to expend money in procuring articles and books upon the subject, and you will find that bad jests and ungrammatical ridicule are cheap substitutes for sound thought and cool argument.’
Source: New York Saturday Press, 18 December 1858, page 3. See Advice for Chess Journalists.
‘That ladies do not generally play chess well, is owing, I think, not so much to a deficiency of intellectual capability for the game, but rather that the female physique being more sensitive and easily excitable than that of man, renders it difficult for them to maintain the complete abstraction and concentration of mind and thought, without which it is impossible to become a good player. There is no rule, however, without its exceptions; and I have heard of lady chessplayers contending successfully, upon even ground with the front-rank men of the St George’s Club.’
Source: H.A. Kennedy, Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1844, page 215. C.N. 2232. See Chess and Women.
‘I reiterate that “the principles” and “the modern school”, as far as their development is demonstrated in my book, belong to me and nobody else. It has gone with the modern school like with other discoveries. It was ridiculed and pooh-poohed for a long time, and since it came to be recognized, investors try to make more profit out of it than the inventor.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, January 1890, page 10. See also Steinitz Quotes.
‘In chess I have become a “duffer”, though with training I might learn the game anew. I am rather sick of war, famine, revolution, immorality and violence. Not that I despair of the world – not at all – but for the moment I should like to be out of the center of the tempest; because my power of endurance is nearly used up, not physically, but morally. I have a longing to be at a quiet spot for a while until I know that fruitful effort is again appreciated. My wife is wonderfully patient and enduring, as, in fact, all good women are.’
Source: Em. Lasker, letter to Walter Penn Shipley, American Chess Bulletin, November 1919, page 249. C.N. 2259.
‘There is now, happily, no champion of the world – no King of Chess. In the best interests of chess may there never be another.’
Source: M. Hazletine, Brooklyn Chess Chronicle, 1 January 1883, pages 61-62. C.N. 9760. See Early Uses of ‘World Chess Champion’.
‘To play solely to win a game which offers such inviting temptations to anyone gifted with an imagination, requires a man who has fishblood in his veins.’
Source: I. Gunsberg, Chess Pie, 1922, pages 74-77. C.N. 3084.
‘If there is any possibility of not recapturing a pawn, Ragozin would always try to avoid the recapture. He would sit at the board, brooding over more artistic plans.’
Source: L. Steiner, Kings of the Chess Board (Roseville, 1948), page 26. C.N. 3098. See Chess Jottings.
‘Considering his youth and his talent, I have no doubt that Abe Yanofsky will one day belong to the strongest of the strong ones, and many of my colleagues share this opinion.’
Source: M. Euwe, Introduction to Chess the Hard Way! by D.A. Yanofsky (London, 1953). C.N. 2376.
‘It is not the least reproach to Morphy and Anderssen that they did not know what was discovered after their time, no more than to assert that Sir Isaac Newton, if he became alive now, would not be fit for a Professor of mathematics at a high-class school without some further study.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, December 1886, page 371. C.N. 1113. See Steinitz Quotes.
‘I have my personal and quite idiosyncratic method of preparing. Essentially, I prepare only during the first games. I note exactly which variations my opponent chooses, what he is striving for, and then I select the openings which I shall play and establish my entire tactics accordingly.’
Source: A. Alekhine, interview, Aachener Anzeiger – Politisches Tageblatt, 30 November 1929. C.N. 7567. See Interviews with Alekhine.
‘Mere bookishness is not knowledge, nor on the other hand is a fine disregard of chess literature a key to proficiency; and the beginner drinking in the plausible hallucinations of a Gossip or a Staunton is quite as misguided as he who heeds the warning of a Lasker to give the chess book a wide berth.’
Source: W.E. Napier, Checkmate, February 1903, pages 98-99. C.N. 10699.
‘Kostić can claim that he is the first chess master to make a tour of the chess world in a really comprehensive way.’
Source: BCM, December 1925, pages 491-492. C.N. 1042. See Chess Jottings.
‘I approached Botvinnik and asked him to tell me what he did when his opponent was thinking. The former world title-holder replied in much the following terms: Basically I do divide my thinking into two parts. When my opponent’s clock is going I discuss general considerations in an internal dialogue with myself. When my own clock is going I analyse concrete variations.’
Source: A. Kotov, Think Like a Grandmaster (London, 1971), page 139. See Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-95).
‘I suggest that players in a tournament should be allowed to agree that one take three-quarters of a point and his opponent a quarter. A player is often disinclined to accept a draw but not certain that he can win; the three-quarters of a point might satisfy him and a safe quarter-point might be acceptable to his opponent. Such a result could be quite helpful to an organizer pairing up in a Swiss tournament.’
Source: A.R.B. Thomas, CHESS, 24 January 1960, page 118. C.N. 3036. See Chess Scoring and Pairing Systems.
‘In every combination there is a piece which works harder than the others. The only problem is how to find this piece and put it to work!’
Source: D. Bronstein and T. Fürstenberg, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (London, 1995), page 61.
‘Alekhine’s real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations or mating attacks come into consideration at all.’
Source: M. Euwe, Meet the Masters (London, 1940), page 3. C.N. 8603.
‘I don’t know anyone else in the history of chess to whom we owe so much ... No-one from our generation of chessplayers, nor the one to follow, should ever forget that we are living off the dividends guaranteed us by Robert James Fischer.’
Source: A. Karpov, Karpov on Karpov (New York, 1991), page 167. C.N. 1941.
‘The super-men of chess come by that distinction through two rare capacities, an inscrutable vision in end play and a bland sense of well-being in what, to lesser men, look like predicaments.’
Source: W.E. Napier, item 75 in Napier’s Amenities and Background of Chess-Play.
‘Though I fight with might and main against the inky ruffianism of the chess press impostors, I entertain a genuine charitable feeling for the failings of real chess masters, and some allowance ought to be made for the excitement of a mental contest which entails the hardest kind of brain exertion with little prospect of proportionate reward.’
Source: W. Steinitz, International Chess Magazine, May 1889, page 140. See Steinitz Quotes.
‘Discovered check. This is one of the most destructive devices available to the player – it is the hydrogen bomb of the chessboard.’
Source: R. Fine, The Middle Game in Chess (Philadelphia, 1952), page 15. C.N. 8726. See Double Check in Chess.
‘Any player, no matter how strong he is, can overlook quite simple moves in the course of a game. The point is, that published analysis should be free from such errors. I pride myself on the fact that I have never made a mistake in analysis.’
Source: R.J. Fischer, Chess Life, July-August 1963, page 172.
‘Euwe’s chess talent is in origin purely tactical – unlike that of such masters as Steinitz, Rubinstein, Capablanca and Nimzowitsch. But he is a tactician who is determined at all costs to become a good strategist, and by dint of a great deal of hard work he has had some measure of success.’
Source: A. Alekhine, Manchester Guardian, 28 December 1937, pages 11-12. See Euwe and Alekhine on their 1937 Match.
‘Chess, like love, is a conflict between reflexes and reflections.’
Source: D.J. Morgan, BCM, October 1973, pages 446.
‘We fear that students often get wrong impressions because writers use condemnatory words about errors that are really extremely slight.’
Source: C.J.S. Purdy, C.J.S. Purdy, His Life, His Games and His Writings by J. Hammond and R. Jamieson (Melbourne, 1982), page 148. C.N. 434.
‘The chessplayer who aspires to demonstrate the “how” of the game will view the single point scored a poor offset for the failure to gratify his artistic yearnings.’
Source: A. Alekhine, New York Times, 1 August 1929, pages 21 and 23. See Alekhine on Carlsbad, 1929.
‘When I compare my own career with that of Fischer, I have to admit that I enjoyed a certain advantage over him. He had no-one besides himself to draw him up to the heights he reached, whereas I have been privileged in having a high-class player like Karpov, who forced me to exert myself and advance ever higher.’
Source: G. Kasparov, Foreword to Bobby Fischer: A Study of His Approach to Chess. by E. Agur (London, 1992). C.N. 2328. See Fischer v Czerniak, Netanya, 1968.
‘He had been cogitating some time and at length played. Notwithstanding his ruminations, however, he overlooked a slip mate on the board. “Ah!”, he exclaimed, “I was only looking for checks!”’
Source: Chess Player’s Chronicle, 3 May 1899, page 87. C.N. 10116. See Excuses for Losing at Chess.
‘Any book by Pachman you should buy without hesitation; his illustrative examples from play are better than anyone else’s.’
Source: B.H. Wood, Daily Telegraph, 1 December 1973, page 9.
‘The treatment of this game in chess literature suggests how easy it is to be dazzled by its ingenuity, captivated by its charm, until one’s critical faculties are suspended and one believes everything one sees.’
Source: W. Heidenfeld, Draw! (London, 1982), page 5. A comment on Hamppe v Meitner, Vienna, 1872. C.N. 394. See Chess Draws.
‘The Stonewall is not playable if Black cannot bring a knight to e4.’
Source: A. Nimzowitsch, Carlsbad International Chess Tournament 1929 (New York, 1981), page 49. C.N. 511.
‘His endgame play was extraordinarily deep.’
Source: M. Botvinnik, Half a Century of Chess (Oxford, 1984), page 83. C.N. 863. On G. Levenfish.
Regarding observations of our own, see Chess Thoughts.
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Copyright Edward Winter. All rights reserved.