by Tartakower

No one ever won a game by resigning.

It is always better to sacrifice your opponents' men.
The mistakes are there waiting to be made.
The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made.
To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game.
Some part of a mistake is always correct.
Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders.
The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing; the
strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing.
A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have
the advantage, the second when you believe that you have an advantage, and
the third when you know you're going to lose !
A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes the most
complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them not only difficult, but
almost a matter of course.
Seize the outpost K5 with your knight, and you can go to sleep. Checkmate will
come by itself.
An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard.
A draw can be obtained not only by repeating moves, but also by one weak
move.
In chess, there is only one mistake: over-estimation of your opponent. All else is
either bad luck or weakness.

Reti is a brilliant type of artist, who battles not so much with his opponents, as
with himself, with his own ideals and doubts.
Reti studies mathematics although he is not a dry mathematician; represents
Vienna without being Viennese; was born in old Hungary yet he does not know
Hungarian; speaks uncommonly rapidly only in order to act all the more
maturely and deliberately; and will yet become the best chessplayer without,
however, becoming world champion.
Whenever Black succeeds in assuming the initiative and maintaining it to a
successful conclusion, the sporting spirit of the chess lover feels gratified,
because it shows that the resources of the game are far from being exhausted.
The ability to create and to control the tension of battle is perhaps the principal
attainment of the great player.
Like the alchemist of old, for ever searching for the philosopher's stone, the
analyst to-day never stops looking for stronger moves to prevent the defender
from establishing equality.
Drawn games are sometimes more scintillating than any conclusive contest.
It is well-known that chess and music go well together, and many are those who
have achieved unusual proficiency in both.
Played 'a la Morphy'. What greater praise can be given?
Psychologically, the choice of an appropriate opening is of the utmost
importance for a player's success in a tournament.
A Queen's sacrifice, even when fairly obvious, always rejoices the heart of the
chess-lover.
It is said that an ounce of common sense can outweigh a ton of "variations".
Lasker thought that his rationalism rendered him immune from the surprises of
chess theory.
Shall we ever live to see the following wise prohibition - the audience is
forbidden to smoke and the masters are forbidden to 'smoke out' the audience
by playing exchanging variations?
The first essential for an attack is the will to attack.

by Tarrasch
I have always had a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of
chess.
Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.
He who fears the isolated queen's pawn should give up chess.
Before the endgame the gods have placed the middlegame.
It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well.
Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic of the chess player.
Weak points or holes in the opponent's position must be occupied by pieces, not
pawns.
Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But now he
makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head.
One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent.
When you don't know what to play, wait for an idea to come into your
opponent's mind. You may be sure that idea will be wrong.
What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of
being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.
In a rook and pawn ending, the rook must be used aggressively. It must either
attack enemy pawns, or give active support to the advance of one of its own
pawns to the queening square.
As Rousseau could not compose without his cat beside him, so I cannot play
chess without my king's bishop. In its absence the game to me is lifeless and
void. The vitalizing factor is missing, and I can devise no plan of attack.
If the defender is forced to give up the center, then every possible attack follows
almost of itself.

White has no positional equivalent for the centralized pawn.

All lines of play which lead to the imprisonment of the bishop are on principle to
be condemned. (on the closed Ruy Lopez)
It cannot be too greatly emphasized that the most important role in pawn
endings is played by the king.
a lively imagination can exercise itself most fully and creatively in conjuring
up magnificent combinations.
The future belongs to he who has the bishops.
Chess is a terrible game. If you have no center, your opponent has a freer
position. If you do have a center, then you really have something to worry
about!
First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players
sometimes play a first-class game.
Many have become chess masters - no one has become the master of chess.
Every move creates a weakness.
Intellectual activity is perhaps the greatest pleasure of life; chess is one of the
forms of intellectual activity.

by Nimzowitsch
The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard.
Even the laziest king flees wildly in the face of double check.
In the middlegame, the king is merely an extra, but in the endgame, he is one of
the star actors.
The beauty of a move lies not in its' appearance but in the thought behind it.
The defensive power of a pinned piece is but imaginary.

The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild
measures such as police surveillance are not sufficient.
The night of QB3 is under obligation, the moment the enemy gives him the
chance, of undertaking an invasion of the center by Kn-Q5.
The great mobility of the King forms one of the chief characteristics of all
endgame strategy. In the middlegame the King is a mere "super", in the
endgame on the other hand - on of the "principals". We must therefore develop
him, bring him nearer to the fighting line.
Steinitz had perhaps only one deficiency: he was ahead of his generation by at
least 50 years!
He deals with us like inexperienced fledglings. - after a 19 move loss vs.
Alekhine in Bled 1931
Strategically important points should be overprotected. If the pieces are so
engaged, they get their regard in the fact that they will then find themselves
well posted in every respect.
Ridicule can do much, for instance embitter the existence of young talents.
No pawn exchanges, no file-opening, no attack.
It is a well known phenomenon that the same amateur who can conduct the
middle game quite creditably, is usually perfectly helpless in the end game. One
of the principal requisites of good chess is the ability to treat both the middle
and end game equally well.
If in a battle, I seize a bit of debatable land with a handful of soldiers, without
having done anything to prevent an enemy bombardment of the position, would
it ever occur to me to speak of a conquest of the terrain in question? Obviously
not. Then why should I do so in chess?
When I today ask myself whence I got the moral courage, for it takes moral
courage to make a move (or form a plan) running counter to all tradition, I think
I may say in answer, that it was only my intense preoccupation with the problem
of the blockade which helped me to do so.
First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy.
Chess strategy as such today is still in its diapers, despite Tarrasch's statement
'We live today in a beautiful time of progress in all fields'. Not even the slightest
attempt has been made to explore and formulate the laws of chess strategy.
1925
Many men, many styles; what is chess style but the intangible expression of the
will to win.

The chess world is obligated to organize a match between the champion of the
world and the winner of this Carlsbad tournament - indeed, this is a moral
obligation. If the world of chess should remain deaf to its obligation, on the
other hand, it would amount to an absolutely unforgivable omission, carrying
with it a heavy burden of guilt. - upon finishing clear first ahead of Capablanca
in Carlsbad 1929, where current champion Alekhine did not participate
How vain are our fears! I thought to myself. "Sometimes we fear that which our
opponent (or fate) had never even considered! After this, then, is it any longer
worthwhile to rack one's brain to find new ghosts to fear? No, indeed: All hail
optimism! - upon his opponent Mattison missing an unusual knight manouevre.
Spielmann is, in fact, the hardest-working of all the masters, continually
searching out the flaws in his game and striving to eliminate them.
Another of Rubinstein's characteristic features is his dislike for melodramatics.
Empty rhetoric and pretentious moves alike shock him to the core!

on Chigorin
Chigorin's talent is enormous, and possibly he is a real genius. At times the
depth of his ideas can be inaccessible to mere mortals. - Alexander Alekhine.
(Chigorin) was a bundle of nervous energy and he constantly swung his crossed
foot back and forth. Speaking only in his native Russian, he was handicapped in
getting along with the other masters. - Frank Marshall
Once he fixated on an idea, his theoretical point became more important to him
than winning, and this lack of competitive pragmatism prevented him from
making it to the top. - Garry Kasparov
Had Chigorin been able to rein in his fantasy on just a few occasions, the world
might have had its first Russian champion decades before Alekhine. - Garry
Kasparov
In Russia the first player to devote all his life to the game, the man who initiated
the habit of adopting a profound approach to chess, was Mikhail Ivanovich

Chigorin, and we can only speak of the existence of a Russian chess school from
this time onward. - Mikhail Botvinnik
The grandiosity of Chigorin's ideas is enchanting: his every move breathes with
creative force and an irresistable will to win. - Rudolph Spielmann
Chigorin, a genius of practical play, considers his privilege at every convenient
opportunity to challenge the principles of contemporary chess theory. Wilhelm Steinitz
In difficult positions Chigorin gets very excited, and at times seems quite fierce,
sitting at the board, with his black hair brushed back, splendid bright eyes, and
flushed face look as if he could see right through the table. When calm,
however, he is decidedly handsome, and calculated to beget confidence. Tournament Book of Hastings 1895

by Carlsen
I played like a child. - (13 year old Magnus after a loss in the second game of a
two game rapid chess match with Kasparov - after drawing the first game)
It's easy to get obsessed with chess. That's what happened with Fischer and
Paul Morphy. I don't have that same obsession. - (as interviewed in Time
magazine)
I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal
person.
I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the
moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.
I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I
lose at Monopoly.
He has an extreme capacity for work, extreme determination to win and
extreme perfectionism. - (on Kasparov)

on Carlsen
This is real talent. - Alexander Nikitin
Magnus has a strong fighting spirit and only starts complications when he can
control them. - Carsten Muller
With so many victories coming relatively easily to his immense talent and
fighting spirit, the final crucial ingredient of relentless work will guarantee his
place in history. - Garry Kasparov
You could say that both Fischer and Carlsen had or have the ability to let chess
look simple. - Viswanathan Anand

by Bronstein
Chess is imagination.
The most powerful weapon in chess is to have the next move.
The essence of Chess is thinking about what Chess is.
Far from all of the obvious moves that go without saying are correct.
Losing your objectivity almost always means losing the game.
You want to play the King's Gambit? Well, Black can draw after 3. Nf3. Play 3.
Bc4 if you want to win !
Apparently, Morphy's style exerts an irresistable magnetic power for players of
all times, and the return to a style of the highest degree is the dream of every
chessplayer, not excluding even the Grandmasters.
In chess, as in life, opportunity strikes but once.

A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the
conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince
yourself that your intuition has not deceived you.
Sometimes at lectures I am asked: how would the champions of the last century
play today? I think that, after making a hurried study of modern openings, and
watching one or two tournaments, the champions of the last century, and
indeed the century before that, would very quickly occupy the same place that
they occupied when they were alive.
There is not a single true chess-player in the world whose heart does not beat
faster at the mere sound of such long beloved and familiar words as 'gambit
games'.
It is no secret that any talented player must in his soul be an artist, and what
could be dearer to his heart and soul than the victory of the subtle forces of
reason over crude material strength! Probably everyone has his own reason for
liking the King`s Gambit, but my love for it can be seen in precisely those terms.
But whatever you might say and whatever I might say, a machine which can
play chess with people is one of the most marvellous wonders of our 20th
century!
Botvinnik himself is always right at the front in chess theory; what becomes
known to us today, was known to him yesterday. And that means that what will
only be understandable to us tomorrow, Botvinnik already knows today.
Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one`s
opponent`s wildest dreams will become reality.
It would be as naive to study the song of the nightingale, as it would be
ridiculous to try and win a King's Gambit against a representative of the old
chess guard.
Nowadays grandmasters no longer study their opponent's games so much, but
they study his character, his behaviour and his temperament in the most
thorough fashion.
All my life I have studied deeply and carefully the work of this great player and,
as well as I can, I have tried to convert the best of it to my own use. - (on
Lasker)
Independence of thought is a most valuable quality in a chess-player, both at
the board and when preparing for a game.
It is annoying that the rules of chess do not allow a pawn to take either
horizontally or backwards, but only forwards ... This psychological tuning is ideal
for attacking purposes, but what about for defence?

I agree with the opinion expressed by many commentators that in the art of
delicate strategic manoeuvring Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov have no
equals.
To lose one's objective attitude to a position, nearly always means ruining your
game.
If you have made a mistake or committed an inaccuracy there is no need to
become annoyed and to think that everything is lost. You have to reorientate
yourself quickly and find a new plan in the new situation.
Even in the heat of a middlegame battle the master still has to bear in mind the
outlines of a possible future ending.
When you play against an experienced opponent who exploits all the defensive
resources at his command you sometimes have to walk time and again, along
the narrow path of 'the only move'.
To play a match for the World Championship is the cherished dream of every
chess player.
Theory regards this opening as incorrect, but it is impossible to agree with this.
Out of the five tournament games played by me with the King's Gambit, I have
won all five.
Some pieces in the King's Indian appear on a 'special price' list: the darksquare
bishops are at the top of that list.
If a mistake or an inaccuracy occurs, there is no need to assume 'all is lost' and
mope - one must reorient oneself quickly, and find a new plan to fit the new
situation.
The chief characteristics of Geller's creativity are an amazing ability to extract
the very maximum from the opening and a readiness to abandon positional
schemes for an open game rife with combinations, or vice-versa, at any
moment.
There is no disputing that in the eyes of Schlechter, Teichmann or even
Rubinstein, the backward pawn was something more substantial than lively
piece play, but in our day the latter is more often preferred.

on Bronstein
After reaching the heights, Bronstein was unable to maintain his concentration
and play his best chess. He committed several of the worst errors of his career
during his match with Botvinnik. - Garry Kasparov

... In my match with Bronstein I was frequently confused - I could not

immediately understand what my opponent wanted to do! - Mikhail Botvinnik
I must admit that, although I am an ardent admirerer of Grandmaster D.
Bronstein, I do not quite understand his habit of thinking about his first move
from 10 minutes to half an hour. - Mikhail Tal
His style is typical of the bold tactics adpoted by the Soviet masters, with one
exceptionally original twist - his attacks come right out of the openings, which
he has studied more profoundly than his collegues. - Rueben Fine
His fantasy was a torrent which could not be dammed. I remember our games
and the analysis afterwards. I regarded with disbelief the variations which
Bronstein considered during play. It was a fantastic world into which my cold
reason, even had I been able, would never have entered. - Svetozar Gligoric
He is extremely vulnerable. A breaking of ethics puts him in a state of shock and
he cannot bear rudeness. - Vanstein

by Kortchnoi
Chess is my life.
No Chess Grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their
madness.
The only positive contribution to chess from Fischer in the last 20 years. - (on
the Fischer clock)
Now how the hell can I be Petrosian's second if it makes me sick to watch how
he plays?
As a rule, the more mistakes there are in a game, the more memorable it
remains, because you have suffered and worried over each mistake at the
board.

Chess players, people who travel all over the world, should be trusted or else
not sent anywhere at all. Why are these four people (Antoshin and three other
official 'minders') sent along to supervise us? With their meagre experience, all
that thay did was interfere, more than ever before. And when they were
needed, they weren't to be found ...
One cannot help but admire the devilish determination and ingenuity of this
man. - (on Petrosian)
There came a time when I realized that the ability to defend was - for a good
chess player - insufficient. You can't be dependent upon your opponent's will,
but must try to impose your will on him.
It is unpleasant for the players, when the organizers arrange for play to take
place in the morning. The games from such last rounds, in view of the large
number of mistakes, are not fit for publication!
Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a
player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly
composed.
As a fellow traveller and a living witness of Spassky's progress, I can testify that
I know no man who is more capable of self-perfection than Spassky.
From being an average member of society - featureless, unreasoning,
submissive - he has become an independent, discerning thinker, and has
gradually turned into a dissident. - (on Spassky)

on Kortchnoi
As far as Kortchnoi the chess player is concerned, he fulfilled himself as much as
his strength and talent allowed. - Anatoly Karpov
My association with Kortchnoi is linked with many difficult moments, dark
thoughts, disappointments, and despair, but I have nothing against Kortchnoi. Anatoly Karpov
I have heard so many times that Kortchnoi had the great misfortune of meeting
me when his best playing was already behind him. Nothing of the sort!
Kortchnoi's best years arrived exactly at the time he battled me . - Anatoly
Karpov
With all his outward aplomb, ostentatious strength, and demonstrative
assurance, Kortchnoi was always a rather unstable and doubting person. Anatoly Karpov

Kortchnoi has a stable opening repertoire, with which he aims to lure his
opponents into schemes where he is well versed. - Anatoly Karpov
When playing against Kortchnoi you have to think not only about the current
moves, but also about what the opponent may take the liberty of doing, and this
is not the best atmosphere for creativity. - Anatoly Karpov
Kortchnoi rarely declines any opportunity to gain material. - Anatoly Karpov

by Morphy
Permit me to repeat what I have invariably declared in every chess community I
have had the honor of entering, that I am not a chess professional player - that I
never wished to make any skill I possess the means of pecuniary advancement and that my earnest desire is never to play for any stake but honor.

on Morphy
Morphy treats chess with the seriousness and conscientiousness of an artist
For him a game of chess is a sacred duty. - Adolf Anderssen
He who plays with Morphy must abandon all hope of catching him in a trap, no
matter how cunningly laid, but must assume that it is so clear to Morphy that
there can be no question of a false step. - Adolph Anderssen
I cannot record any remarkable saying of Morphy's because I never heard him
utter any; he was, indeed, eminently taciturn, seldom if ever opening his lips,
and only doing so to make some remark about chess ... - Alexander
MacDonnell
Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all. - Bobby Fischer
Staunton appears to have been afraid to meet Morphy and I think his fears were
well-founded. Morphy would have beaten him, but it wouldn't have been the
one-sided encounter that many writers now think it would. It would have been a
great struggle. - Bobby Fischer

A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess
world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the
loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat
anybody alive today ... - Bobby Fischer
So still was he that, but for the searching intellect which glittered in his full dark
eye, you might have taken him for a carven image as he pondered his moves.
His bearing was mild, and that of a refined gentleman, and he dealt with the
most crushing blows on his adversary with an almost womanly ease and grace.
- Captain Kennedy
Apparently, Morphy's style exerts an irresistable magnetic power for players of
all times, and the return to a style of the highest degree is the dream of every
chessplayer, not excluding even the Grandmasters. - David Bronstein
When seated before the chessboard, his face betrays no agitation even in the
most critical positions; in such cases he generally whistles an air through his
teeth and patiently seeks for the combination to get him out of trouble. - Ernst
Morphy
Morphy stepped from the armchair in which he had been almost immovable for
ten consecutive hours, without having tasted a morsel of anything, even water,
during the whole of the period; yet as fresh, apparently, as when he sat down ...
- Frederick Milne Edge on the blindfold exhibition at Cafe de Regence in Paris
Who that was present that evening does not remember Paul Morphy's first
appearance at the New York City Chess Club? The secretary, Mr. Frederick
Perrin, valorously offered to be his first antagonist, and presented about the
same resistance as a mosquito to an avalanche. - Frederick Milne Edge
Morphy has a great love for music, and his memory for any air he has once
heard is astonishing. Mrs. Morphy is renowned in the salons of New Orleans as a
brilliant pianist and musician, and her son, without ever having studied music,
has a similar aptitude for it, and it is believed that he would have become
famous theirin as in chess, had he given his attention to it. - Frederick Milne
Edge
Morphy was so far ahead of his time that it took another quarter century for
these principles of development and attack to be rediscovered and formulated.
- Garry Kasparov
When he went to the New York tournament in 1857, he had his first experience
of mean and petty chess jealousy. He found out for the first time that there were
persons who did not have the same lofty ideas about the game that he had, and
it was a great shock to the young gentleman. - J.A. Galbreath
Morphy gained most of his wins by playing directly and simply, and it is simple
and logical method that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is
considered from the viewpoint of the great masters. - Jose Capablanca

Paul Morphy was never so passionately fond, so inordinately devoted to chess

as is generally believed. An intimate acquaintance and long observation enables
us to state this positively. - Charles Maurian
If the distinguishing feature of a genius is that he is far ahead compared with his
epoch, then Morphy was a chess genius in the complete sense of the word. Max Euwe
To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games. Just how great
was his significance is evident from the fact that after Morphy nothing
substantially new has been created in this field. - Mikhail Botvinnik
When one plays with Morphy the sensation is as queer as the first electric
shock, or first love, or chloroform, or any entirely novel experience. - Moncure
Daniel Conway
Played 'a la Morphy'. What greater praise can be given? - Savielly Tartakower
There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for chess Morphy was a
great artist. His play was captivated by freshness of thought and inexhaustible
energy. He played with inspiration, without striving to penetrate into the
psychology of the opponent; he played, if one can express it so, 'pure chess'. Vasily Smyslov
Steinitz confirmed me in my opinion that Morphy played some of his best moves
by intuition, as it was impossible that the human brain could have thoroughly
analysed the result. - W.J.A. Fuller
Morphy flashed upon the chess world like a meteor, and disappeared almost as
suddenly as he came. His sad fate and untimely end were due to other causes
than chess, as his friends all know. - W.J.A. Fuller
I played more games with him than any other man. The reason why he
preferred to play with me at these parties was because I knew I should be
beaten as a matter of course, and I was not afraid to play an open game, so that
he might exhibit his great brilliancy ... - W.J.A. Fuller
It's easy to get obsessed with chess - that's what happened with Fischer and
Paul Morphy. I don't have that same obsession. - Magnus Carlsen
In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned
figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in
America. - Garry Kasparov
The radiant combinations of this chess genius can be compared with the
transparent music of Mozart, and his impeccable behaviour at the board and his
precise observance of the chess rules, which he himself introduced, resemble
the Mendeleyev Table of the elements. - Anatoly Karpov

WILHELM STEINITZ {WCH 1886-1894}

Chanchalgiri mah ,kendur nagar

The scientific method, which could, in his opinion, provide the key to the solving of any
problems arising on the chess board. He was the first to divide a position in to its components
elements, to pick out its most important factors, and so state the general principal of strategy.
This was a great discovery, a turning point in chess history!! But in practice Steinitz often
overestimated the importance of the theory of positional play he had created, and relied
excessively on abstract principals. Well, he was a true child of his materialistic time, when there
prevailed a nave belief in the omnipotence of science and in the inevitability that soon all natural
processes would be completely understood.

by Steinitz
The King is a fighting piece - use it!

I have never in my life played the French Defense, which is the dullest of all openings.

A sacrifice is best refuted by accepting it.

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack.

A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror.

Capture of the adverse King is the ultimate but not the first object of the game.

Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during
the game.

In the ending the king is a powerful piece for assisting his own pawns, or stopping the adverse
pawns.

Chigorin, a genius of practical play, considers his privilege at every convenient opportunity to
challenge the principles of contemporary chess theory.

I am not a chess historian - I myself am a piece of chess history, which no one can avoid. I will not
write about myself, but I am sure that someone will write

Unfortunately, many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing him as a guide to the truth

Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he
has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous
research.

The king pawn and the queen pawn are the only ones to be moved in the early part of the game.

I may be on old lion, but if someone puts his finger in my mouth, I'll bite it off!

The task of the positional player is systematically to accumulate slight advantages and try to convert
temporary advantages into permanent ones, otherwise the player with the better position runs the
risk of losing it.

on Steinitz
Steinitz had perhaps only one deficiency: he was ahead of his generation by at least 50 years! Aaron Nimzowitsch

Steinitz was the most profound opening analyst of all time. He was more theorist than player, but
nonetheless he was the strongest player of his day. Playing over his games, I discover that they are
completely modern; where Morphy and Steinitz rejected the fianchetto, Steinitz embraced it. In
addition, he understood all of the positional concepts which modern players hold so dear, and thus with Steinitz, must be considered the first modern player. - Bobby Fischer

He understood more about the use of squares than did Morphy, and contributed a great deal more to
chess theory. - Bobby Fischer

True friends of chess must be thankful to you for the interest which you constantly awake with your
aversion to schablon-like (stereotyped) play. As known to you I do not share your theory and
principlies completely, which, however, does not prevent me from appreciating them. - Mikhail
Chigorin

A player, as the world believed he was, he was not, his studious temperament made that impossible;
and thus he was conquered by a player and in the end little valued by the world, he died. - Emanuel
Lasker

He was a pioneer and one of the most profound researchers into the truth of the game, which was
hidden from his contemporaries. - Jose Capablanca

Place the contents of the Chess box in a hat, shake them up vigorously, pour them on the board from
a height of two feet, and you get the style of Steinitz. - Henry Bird

A sacrifice is best refuted by accepting it.

Wilhelm Steinitz

A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic

horror.
Wilhelm Steinitz

Chess is intellectual gymnastics.

Wilhelm Steinitz

Chess is not for timid souls.

Wilhelm Steinitz

Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having

an evil thought during the game.
Wilhelm Steinitz

Fame, I have already. Now I need the money.

Wilhelm Steinitz

I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the
game.
Wilhelm Steinitz

I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all
openings.
Wilhelm Steinitz

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack.
Wilhelm Steinitz

When you have an advantage, you are obliged to attack; otherwise you are
endangered to lose the advantage.
Wilhelm Steinitz

EMANUEL LASKER {WCH 1894-1921}

A native of Germany, a doctor of philosophy and mathematics, Lasker was the first, and
at that time the only player to appreciate the importance of psychological factors. While being an
excellent tactician and strategist, at the same time he realized that the art of exploiting the
opponents deficiencies was sometimes far more important than the ability to make the most
correct moves. A deep knowledge of human psychological and an understanding of the relative
value of chess strategy helped him to win almost all the events in which he competed, and to
retain the title of champion for 27 long years. An absolute record!! And who at that time were the
masters of thinking? Of course, Einsiain and Freud!! As they say, commentary is superfluous..
By lasker
When you see a good move, look for a better one.

Without error there can be no brilliancy.

Chess is, above all, a fight.

On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not last long.

In Chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated.

The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.

The hardest game to win is a won game.

I have added these principles to the law: get the Knights into action before both bishops are
developed.

By what right does White, in an absolutely even position, such as after move one, when both sides
have advanced 1. e4, sacrifice a pawn, whose recapture is quite uncertain, and open up his kingside
to attack? And then follow up this policy by leaving the check of the black queen open? None
whatever ! - on the King's Gambit

The game gives us a satisfaction that Life denies us. And for the Chess player, the success which
crowns his work, the great dispeller of sorrows, is named 'combination'.

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

Do not permit yourself to fall in love with the end-game play to the exclusion of entire games. It is
well to have the whole story of how it happened; the complete play, not the denouement only. Do not
embrace the rag-time and vaudeville of chess.

By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its
principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight.

Truth derives its strength not so much from itself as from the brilliant contrast it makes with what is
only apparently true. This applies especially to Chess, where it is often found that the profoundest
moves do not much startle the imagination.

The process of making pieces in Chess do something useful (whatever it may be) has received a
special name: it is called the attack. The attack is that process by means of which you remove
obstructions.

To refer to the oft mooted question, "Which piece is stronger, the Bishop or the Knight?" it is clear
that the value of the Bishop undergoes greater changes than that of the Knight.

Vanity should never tempt a player to engage in a combat at the risk of loss of health. It is bad
enough to lose without the additional annoyance of paying doctors' bills.

I believe in magic ... There is magic in the creative faculty such as great poets and philosophers
conspicuously possess, and equally in the creative chessmaster.

The most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter,
nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and
painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail
to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.

In mathematics, if I find a new approach to a problem, another mathematician might claim that he
has a better, more elegant solution. In chess, if anybody claims he is better than I, I can checkmate
him.

The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful
moves in his mind.

A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a
knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance.

When Alekhine recognizes the weakness in his position he has a tendency to become very aggressive.
Patient defence is not for him if he can see the slightest chance of creating an attack. Yet sound
strategy often demands that you submit to the opponent's will so as to strengthen your weaknesses
and get rid of defects in your game.

To find the right plan is just as hard as looking for its sound justification.

By positional play a master tries to prove and exploit true values, whereas by combinations he seeks
to refute false values ... A combination produces an unexpected re-assessment of values.

Th range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very

limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's
brain.

Loss generally occurs when a player overrates his advantage or for other reasons seeks to derive
from a minute advantage a great return such as a forced win.

He who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his
antagonist who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very
frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage.

A player, as the world believed he was, he was not, his studious temperament made that impossible;
and thus he was conquered by a player and in the end little valued by the world, he died.

King of chess - (what he whispered to his wife before he died)

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

The fatal hour of this ancient game is approaching. In its modern form this game will soon die a
drawing death - the inevitable victory of certainty and mechanization will leave its stamp on the fate
of chess

I have known many chess players, but among them there has been only one genius - Capablanca!

on Lasker
For me, this personality, notwithstanding his fundamentally optimistic attitude, had a tragic note.
The enormous mental resilience, without which no chess player can exist, was so much taken up by
chess that he could never free his mind of this game, even when he was occupied by philosophical
and humanitarian questions. - Albert Einstein
Lasker was my teacher, and without him I could not have become whom I became. The idea of chess
art is unthinkable without Emanuel Lasker. - Alexander Alekhine
All my life I have studied deeply and carefully the work of this great player and, as well as I can, I
have tried to convert the best of it to my own use. - David Bronstein
I don't think I will win a game in this match. Lasker plays too stupidly for me to look at the board
with any interest. - David Janowski
Lasker does not play chess, he plays dominoes. - (after losing 1910 match +0=3-8) - David
Janowski
None of the great players has been so incomprehensible to the majority of amateurs and even
masters, as Emanuel Lasker. - Jose Capablanca
That he was a great endgame player is unquestionable. In fact, he was the greatest I have ever
known. But he was also the most profound and the most imaginative player I have ever known. Jose Capablanca
Lasker was perhaps the first of the great masters who understood the importance of preparing for
competitions; before him, of course, they studied chess, but only in general, and they were not yet
able to prepare concretely - Mikhail Botvinnik
Great was Lasker's role in the social recognition of chess, the realization of its usefulness. "The game
of chess eases our life's struggle", he said. - Mikhail Botvinnik
The greatest of the champions was, of course, Emanuel Lasker. At the chess board he accomplished
the impossible! - Mikhail Tal
Lasker was purely and simply a great fighter who could also put up a tough fight in inferior
positions, in this way being able to save many a difficult position. - Paul Keres

It strikes one as remarkable that Lasker, the one-time world's chess champion, had no disciples.
Steinitz founded a school. Nearly all modern masters have learnt from Tarrasch. One perceives quite
clearly the mind of young Rubinstein in the chess praxis of later years: only Lasker is inimitable.
Why is it? - Richard Reti
Lasker's style was like clear limpid water - with a dash of poison! - Rudolph Spielmann
Many an expert says that there is a certain affinity between (Capablanca's style) and that of the
world master, Lasker. There may be some truth in it. Lasker's style is clear water, but with a drop of
poison which is clouding it. Capablanca's style is perhaps still clearer, but it lacks that drop of
poison. - Jacques Mieses
They compare me with Lasker, which is an exaggerated honour. Lasker made mistakes in every game
and I only in every second one! - Mikhail Tal

JOSE ROUL CAPABLANCA {WCH 1921-1927}

The chess machine!!- this was that the Cuban genius was called, on account of the
purity of his playing style. A favorite with the public, he was a person of refined manners and a
man of the world. The great capa crushed his opponents in an apparently offhand manner, with
exquisite ease and elegance. Also attractive was the fact that he gain his brilliant victories
apparently without any serious preparatory work on chess. But now remember that time the
years of hope and optimism, when the world was enjoying the peace and quiet after the horrors
of the First World War. It was that time that the global export of American cultural value began
from literary bestsellers of Hollywood productions. Stories involving successful heroes, with
dazzling smiles and invariable happy endings, healed the wounds of the recent war. And Capa, a
successful socialite and a spoilt child of fortune, correspondent excellently with the spirit of the
times.

by Capablanca
A passed pawn increase in strength as the number of pieces on the board diminishes.

A good player is always lucky.

You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose
hundreds of games before becoming a good player.

In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the
endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and end game must be studied
in relation to the end game.

I have not given any drawn or lost games, because I thought them inadequate to the purpose of the
book. - (in 'My Chess Career', published in 1920)

Endings of one rook and pawns are about the most common sort of endings arising on the chess
board. Yet though they do occur so often, few have mastered them thoroughly. They are often of a
very difficult nature, and sometimes while apparently very simple they are in reality extremely
intricate.

The best way to learn endings, as well as openings, is from the games of the masters.

The winning of a pawn among good players of even strength often means the winning of the game.

The king, which during the opening and middlegame stage is often a burden because it has to be
defended, becomes in the endgame a very important and aggressive piece, and the beginner should
realize this, and utilize his king as much as possible.

An exception was made with respect to me, because of my victory over Marshall. Some of the masters
objected to my entry one of them was Dr. Bernstein. I had the good fortune to play him in the first
round., and beat him in such fashion as to obtain the Rothschild prize for the most brilliant game ... a
profound feeling of respect for my ability remained throughout the rest of the contest.

Morphy gained most of his wins by playing directly and simply, and it is simple and logical method
that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is considered from the viewpoint of the great
masters.

He was a pioneer and one of the most profound researchers into the truth of the game, which was
hidden from his contemporaries. - (on Wilhelm Steinitz)

None of the great players has been so incomprehensible to the majority of amateurs and even
masters, as Emanuel Lasker.

When you sit down to play a game you should think only about the position, but not about the
opponent. Whether chess is regarded as a science, or an art, or a sport, all the same psychology
bears no relation to it and only stands in the way of real chess.

Excellent! I will still be in time for the ballet! - (upon defeating Ossip Bernstein in the famous 29
move exhibition game played in Moscow in 1914, and before setting off to the Bolshoi Theatre by
horse-drawn carriage)

To improve at chess you should in the first instance study the endgame.

Alekhine evidently possesses the most remarkable chess memory that has ever existed. It is said that
he remembers by heart all the games played by the leading masters during the last 15-20 years.

Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something shameful. This is a wrong
attitude. Those who wish to perfect themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from
them what sorts of things to avoid in the future.

The weaker the player the more terrible the Knight is to him, but as a player increases in strength the
value of the Bishop becomes more evident to him, and of course there is, or should be, a
corresponding decease in his estimation of the value of the Knight as compared to the bishop.

Chess can never reach its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new
effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into a battle of ideas.

The game might be divided into three parts, the opening, the middle-game and the end-game. There
is one thing you must strive for, to be equally efficient in the three parts.

An hour's history of two minds is well told in a game of chess.

Your Soviet players are cheating, losing the games on purpose to my rival, Botvinnik, in order to
increase his points on the score. - (to Stalin in Moscow 1936, where he finished clear 1st, one point
ahead of Botvinnik)

Chess is something more than a game. It is an intellectual diversion which has certain artistic
qualities and many scientific elements.

During the course of many years I have observed that a great number of doctors, lawyers, and
important businessmen make a habit of visiting a chess club during the late afternoon or evening to
relax and find relief from the preoccupations of their work.

Sultan Khan had become champion of India at Indian chess and he learned the rules of our form of
chess at a later date. The fact that even under such conditions he succeeded in becoming champion
reveals a genius for chess which is nothing short of extraordinary.

Ninety percent of the book variations have no great value, because either they contain mistakes or
they are based on fallacious assumptions; just forget about the openings and spend all that time on
the endings.

Although the Knight is generally considered to be on a par with the Bishop in strength, the latter
piece is somehat stronger in the majority of cases in which they are opposed to each other.

The great World Champions Morphy, Steinitz, and Lasker were past masters in the art of Pawn play;
they had no superiors in their handling of endgames. The present World Champion has not the
strength of the other three as an endgame player, and is therefore inferior to them.

To my way of thinking, Troitzky has no peer among endgame compsers; no one else has composed so
many and such varied endings of the first rank.

No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by
many masters, as has Emanuel Lasker.

That he was a great endgame player is unquestionable. In fact, he was the greatest I have ever
known. But he was also the most profound and the most imaginative player I have ever known. - (on
Emanuel Lasker)

People who want to improve should take their defeats as lessons, and endeavor to learn what to
avoid in the future. You must also have the courage of your convictions. If you think your move is
good, make it.

on Capablanca

Capablanca did not apply himself to opening theory (in which he never therefore achieved much),
but delved deeply into the study of end-games and other simple positions which respond to technique
rather than to imagination. - Max Euwe

But alas! Like many another consumation devoutly to be wished, the actual performance was a
disappointing one. - (on the long awaited Lasker-Capablanca match in 1921) - Fred Reinfeld

Never before and never since have I seen - and I cannot even imagine, such an amazing rapidity of
chess thinking that Capablanca possessed in 1913-14. In blitz games he gave all the St. Petersburg
players odds of five minutes to one - and he won. - Alexander Alekhine

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

I did not believe I was superior to him. Perhaps the chief reason for his defeat was the
overestimation of his own powers arising out of his overwhelming victory in New York, 1927, and his
underestimation of mine. - Alexander Alekhine

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

I can remember a case where Capablanca worked out an impressive combination, but then chose to
make a simple move in answer to which his opponent resigned at once! - Alexander Kotov

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

When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who
knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties before he
died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak
about any chess player like that, before or since. - Bobby Fischer

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he
believed was true, he said what he felt. He wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the
twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead.
It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. Its a terrible game now. Very uncreative. -Bobby
Fischer

I have known many chess players, but among them there has been only one genius - Capablanca! Emanuel Lasker

One interesting indication of Capablanca's greatness is that to non-chess players his name was
better known than the names of all other chess masters together! This was due partly to his engaging
personality and distinguished appearance: he was one of those exceptional people who at once stand
out in a crowd. - Fred Reinfeld

Capablanca possessed an amazing ability to quickly see into a position and intuitively grasp its main
features. His style, one of the purest, most crystal-clear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one
with his logic. - Garry Kasparov

Poor Capablanca! Thou wert a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. Thou wert not capable of
believing that in chess, another style could be victorious than the absolutely correct one. - Max
Euwe

The essence of Capablanca's greatness is his rare talent for avoiding all that can complicate or
confuse the conflict. - Max Euwe

He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the
critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's
own. - Max Euwe

The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a
machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances. - Max Euwe

Capablanca plays very superficially sometimes, in a way that can only be ascribed to lack of
concentration. This is an integral weakness of his make-up and can only be partially compensated by
his employing his time allowance to the full. - Max Euwe

(Capablanca's) phenomenal move-searching algorithm in those early years, when he possessed a

wonderful ability for calculating variations very rapidly, made him invincible. - Mikhail Botvinnik

Capablanca's play produced and still produces an irresistable artistic effect. In his games a tendency
towards simplicity predominated, and in this simplicity there was a unique beauty of genuine depth.
- Mikhail Botvinnik

Without technique it is impossible to reach the top in chess, and therefore we all try to borrow from
Capablanca his wonderful, subtle technique. - Mikhail Tal

Knowing nothing about chess, I was unable to appreciate Capablanca's genius in that field, but
working with him gave me an opportunity to appreciate the brilliance of his mind. - Olga
Capablanca

Chess was Capablanca's mother tongue. - Richard Reti

When I was a child I liked the games of Capablanca, and later I was captivated by Alekhine's play. Vladimir Kramnik

Many an expert says that there is a certain affinity between (Capablanca's style) and that of the
world master, Lasker. There may be some truth in it. Lasker's style is clear water, but with a drop of
poison which is clouding it. Capablanca's style is perhaps still clearer, but it lacks that drop of
poison. - Jacques Mieses

You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions
which he had had before. This is not lack of deciciveness or slowness, but the employment of a basic
endgame principle which is 'Do not hurry'. - Alexander Kotov

In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America. - Garry Kasparov

Capa, a gourmet, was also a chef par excellence. Friends joked that he could make more money as a
maestro of the cuisine than in chess. - Olga Capablanca

ALEXANDER ALEKHINE {WCH 1927-1935,1937-1946}

The product of a rich noble family and at the same time the first champion of Soviet
Russia!! Even before this he had known much sorrow in the hard times of war and revolution.
Then came emigration to France, the deploma of doctor of law, the grandiose battle with
capablanca, years of travelling, victories and defeats, the second world war, tournaments in
occupied Europe, then accusations of collaboration with the Nazis and the threat of

disqualification .Alekhines style was the embodiment of psychological aggression. Enormous

preparatory work, explosive energy at the board, and a maniacal striving to fi

by Alekhine
During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk.

When asked, "How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?", I responded: I'm very glad
you asked that, because, as it happems, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I
make my opponent think up his.

Play on both sides of the board is my favourite strategy.

The fact that a player is very short of time is to my mind, as little to be considered as an excuse as,
for instance, the statement of the law-breaker that he was drunk at the time he committed the crime.

Chigorin's talent is enormous, and possibly he is a real genius. At times the depth of his ideas can be
inaccessible to mere mortals.

Pillsbury aspired for the candle of his life to burn constantly at both ends. 'Wine, women, and not
harmless songs, but strong cigars' - this was Pillsbury's principle in life.

Lasker was my teacher, and without him I could not have become whom I became. The idea of chess
art is unthinkable without Emanuel Lasker.

Never before and never since have I seen - and I cannot even imagine, such an amazing rapidity of
chess thinking that Capablanca possessed in 1913-14. In blitz games he gave all the St. Petersburg
players odds of five minutes to one - and he won.

Reti is the only grandmaster whose moves are often completely unexpected to me.

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

I do not play chess - I fight at chess. Therefore I willingly combine the tactical with the strategic, the
fantastic with the scientific, the combinative with the positional, and I aim to respond to the demands
of each given position

For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology.
Capablanca played, relying almost exclusively on his rich intuitive talent. But for the chess struggle
nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature, an understanding of the opponent's
psychology.

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

(My first tournament victory) endowed me with a curious psychological weakness which I have had
to work long and hard to eradicate - if indeed I have eradicated it! - the impression that I could
always, or nearly always, when in a bad position, conjure up some unexpected combination to
extricate me from my difficulties. A dangerous delusion.

Chess is a matter of vanity.

Chess will always be the master of us all.

"Oh! this opponent, this collaborator against his will, whose notion of Beauty always differs from
yours and whose means (strength, imagination, technique) are often too limited to help you
effectively! What torment, to have your thinking and your fantasy tied down by another person!"

Euwe's chess talent is in origin purely tactical - unlike that of such masters as Steinitz, Rubinstein,
Capablanca, and Niemtsovitch. 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.

The infallible criterion by which to distinguish the true from the would-be strategist is the degree of
originality of his conceptions. It makes little difference whether this originality is carried to excess,
as was the case with Steinitz and Nimzowitsch.

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

Young players expose themselves to grave risks when they blindly imitate the innovations of masters
without themselves first checking all the details and consequences of these innovations.

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

Psychology is the most important factor in chess.

I did not believe I was superior to him. Perhaps the chief reason for his defeat was the
overestimation of his own powers arising out of his overwhelming victory in New York, 1927, and his
underestimation of mine. - (0n Capablanca)

During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk.

on Alekhine
He deals with us like inexperienced fledglings. - (after a 19 move loss vs. Alekhine in Bled 1931) Aaron Nimzowitsch

It is said that Alekhine sometimes got so excited with the position that he jumped up from the board
and ran round it 'like a hawk'. - Alexander Kotov

Alekhine believed it essential for every strong player to develop in himself 'unwavering attention,
which must isolate the player completely from the world around him'. - Alexander Kotov

He won a number of well-known games, by right from the opening holding his opponent in a vice
prepared at home. And his grip was strong: after seizing his victim, he would no longer release him.
- Anatoly Karpov

Alekhine developed as a player much more slowly than most. In his twenties, he was an atrocious
chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties. - Bobby Fischer

Alekhine is a player I've never really understood. He always wanted a superior centre; he
manoeuvred his pieces toward the kingside, and around the 25th move, began to mate his opponent.
He disliked exchanges, preferring to play with many pieces on the board. His play was fantastically
complicated, more so than any player before or since. - Bobby Fischer

He considered that chess was closest to an art, and he was able to demonstrate this with his
optimistic, eternally youthful play. - Boris Spassky

I recalled the story about Alekhine, who after a lost game, threw his king far away. Though I am
far from Alekhine's genius, I could understand him at that moment. - Borislav Ivkov

Who else in chess history has won so many serious games with the help of brilliant tactical strokes?
- Garry Kasparov

The inspirational games of Alekander Alekhine, my first chess hero, find a place alongside the
inspirational character of Winston Churchill, whose words and books I still turn to regularly. Garry Kasparov

I knew Alekhine very well and he was perfectly sane; there is not a scrap of evidence that he was
anything other than a chess genius who was perfectly sane either over the board or away from it. Harry Golombek

Alekhine evidently possesses the most remarkable chess memory that has ever existed. It is said that
he remembers by heart all the games played by the leading masters during the last 15-20 years. Jose Capablanca

The great World Champions Morphy, Steinitz, and Lasker were past masters in the art of Pawn play;
they had no superiors in their handling of endgames. The present World Champion has not the
strength of the other three as an endgame player, and is therefore inferior to them. - Jose
Capablanca

at the chessboard he was mighty, away from chess he was like a little boy who would get up to
mischief and naively think that no one was watching him. - Max Euwe

As a person Alekhine was an enigma. He was focused on his chess and on himself to such a degree
that in our countries he was jokingly called 'Alein-ich' (in German 'I am alone'). With such a frame
of mind he could not have any real friends, only admirers and supporters. - Max Euwe

Not without reason is he famed as a conoisseur of opening theory. To gain some advantage from the
opening is vital to him, and he is willing to risk any difficulty or even hazard to attain, as quickly as
possible, a position in which he feels at home. - Max Euwe

Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations
or mating attacks come into consideration at all. - Max Euwe

He is a poet who creates a work of art out of something which would hardly inspire another man to
send home a picture postcard. - Max Euwe

Alekhine is dear to the chess world, mainly as an artist. Typical of him are deep plans, far-sighted
calculation and inexhaustible imagination. - Mikhail Botvinnik

In Alekhine we are captivated by his exceptional combinative talent and his whole-hearted love for
chess. - Mikhail Tal

Much of Alekhine's theoretical work in the openings sprang from his refusal to accept the prevalent
notion that Black, because he moves second, must be satisfied to overcome White's natural initiative
and achieve theoretical equality. - Pal Benko

I can comprehend Alekhine's combinations well enough; but where he gets his attacking chances
from and how he infuses such life into the very opening - that is beyond me. Give me the positions he
obtains, and I should seldom falter. - Rudolph Spielmann

The name of Alekhine is illuminated by the brilliance of his chess combinations. Alekhine possesssed
an exceptionally rich chess imagination, and his skill in creating combinative complications is
incomparable. - Vasily Smyslov

When Alekhine recognizes the weakness in his position he has a tendency to become very aggressive.
Patient defence is not for him if he can see the slightest chance of creating an attack. Yet sound
strategy often demands that you submit to the opponent's will so as to strengthen your weaknesses
and get rid of defects in your game. - Emanuel Lasker

When I was a child I liked the games of Capablanca, and later I was captivated by Alekhine's play. Vladimir Kramnik

MAX EUWE {WCH 1935-1937}

by Euwe
Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation.

Whomever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never
become a good chess player.

Poor Capablanca! Thou wert a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. Thou wert not capable of
believing that in chess, another style could be victorious than the absolutely correct one.

at the chessboard he was mighty, away from chess he was like a little boy who would get up to
mischief and naively think that no one was watching him. - (on Alekhine)

Botvinnik almost makes you feel that difficulty attracts him and stimulates him to the full unfolding of
his powers. Most players feel uncomfortable in difficult positions, but Botvinnik seems to enjoy them.

If the distinguishing feature of a genius is that he is far ahead compared with his epoch, then Morphy
was a chess genius in the complete sense of the word.

As a person Alekhine was an enigma. He was focused on his chess and on himself to such a degree
that in our countries he was jokingly called 'Alein-ich' (in German 'I am alone'). With such a frame
of mind he could not have any real friends, only admirers and supporters.

Not without reason is he famed as a conaisseur of opening theory. To gain some advantage from the
opening is vital to him, and he is willing to risk any difficulty or even hazard to attain, as quickly as
possible, a position in which he feels at home. - (on Alekhine)

Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations
or mating attacks come into consideration at all.

The essence of Capablanca's greatness is his rare talent for avoiding all that can complicate or
confuse the conflict.

He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the
critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's
own.

Where dangers threaten from every side and the smallest slackening of attention might be fatal; in a
position which requires a nerve of steel and intense concentration - Botvinnik is in his element.

Reshevsky is the exception - he is an all-round player with an all-round temperament. He has no

partiality for any special type of position; he likes and plays every sort of game equally well; it is this
which distinguishes him from his fellow-masters.

He is a poet who creates a work of art out of something which would hardly inspire another man to
send home a picture postcard. - (on Alekhine)

Capablanca did not apply himself to opening theory (in which he never therefore achieved much),
but delved deeply into the study of end-games and other simple positions which respond to technique
rather than to imagination.

The 'chess machine,' by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a
machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances. - (on Capablanca)

Capablanca plays very superficially sometimes, in a way that can only be ascribed to lack of
concentration. This is an integral weakness of his make-up and can only be partially compensated by
his employing his time allowance to the full.

Fortified by strong nerves, devout optimism, great self-confidence, a philosophical temperament and
a tremendous weight of experience, he feels confident in any position that is even remotely
presentable, and is up to any task the world of his opponents may present him. -(on Reshevsky)

on Euwe
Euwe's chess talent is in origin purely tactical - unlike that of such masters as Steinitz, Rubinstein,
Capablanca, and Niemtsovitch. 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. Alexander Alekhine

Euwe will go down to chess history as the apostle of method. He is a Doctor of Mathematics, a
qualified actuary, licensed to teach book-keeping, an accomplished boxer, swimmer, aviator. He has
written more books than any three other living masters put together. - Hans Kmoch

As a result of his perhaps too versatile life, Euwe has been able to build up no reserve of habit, no
ability to judge a position by second nature. - Hans Kmoch

Has he some psychological antipathy to realism? I am no psychologist, and cannot say. The fact
remains that Euwe commits the most inexplicable mistakes in thoroughly favorable positions, and
that this weakness has consistently tarnished his record. - Hans Kmoch

Method rules his training, which blends the physical with the mental. How many chess masters put
in, prior to an important match, an allotted time daily to bicycling and shadow-boxing, followed by a
cold douche and a brisk rub down? - Hans Kmoch

MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK {WCH 1948-1957,1958-1960,1961-1963}

by Botvinnik
Chess is the art of analysis.

Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic.

Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing chess positions accurately.

Suddenly it was obvious to me in my analysis I had missed what Fischer had found with the greatest
of ease at the board. - (on his game versus Fischer in the 1962 Varna Olympiad)

Chess, like any creative activity, can exist only through the combined efforts of those who have
creative talent, and those who have the ability to organize their creative work.

Yes, I have played a blitz game once. It was on a train, in 1929.

Don't worry kids, you'll find work. After all, my machine will need strong chess player-programmers.
You will be the first. - (to Karpov & students, 1965)

The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession. - (on
student Anatoly Karpov)

Before Geller we did not understand the King's Indian Defence.

The future of chess lies in the hands of this young man. - (on Kasparov at age 11)

[Capablanca's] phenomenal move-searching algorithm in those early years, when he possessed a

wonderful ability for calculating variations very rapidly, made him invincible.

To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games. Just how great was his significance
is evident from the fact that after Morphy nothing substantially new has been created in this field.

Lasker was perhaps the first of the great masters who understood the importance of preparing for
competitions; before him, of course, they studied chess, but only in general, and they were not yet
able to prepare concretely

Great was Lasker's role in the social recognition of chess, the realization of its usefulness. "The game
of chess eases our life's struggle", he said.

Capablanca's play produced and still produces an irresistable artistic effect. In his games a tendency
towards simplicity predominated, and in this simplicity there was a unique beauty of genuine depth.

Alekhine is dear to the chess world, mainly as an artist. Typical of him are deep plans, far-sighted
calculation and inexhaustible imagination.

Every great master will find it useful to have his own theory on the openings, which only he himself
knows, a theory which is closely linked with plans for the middle game.

I personally never stood out amongst my contemporaries, because I always had to progress by hard
work. Tal, on the other hand, there is an example of someone who did not have to work at it.

Along with my retirement from chess analytical work seems to have gone too.

I claim that nothing else is so effective in encouraging the growth of chess stregth as such
independent analysis, both of the games of the great players and your own.

Memorization of variations could be even worse than playing in a tournament without looking in the
books at all.

It is peculiar but a fact nevertheless, that the gamblers in chess have enthusiastic followers.

Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic.

The triumph of the analytical movement, which formed in the '30's and '40's, was precisely what
earned the Soviet masters the acclaim of chessplayers the world over. Unfortunately, it must also be
noted that, for today's chessmasters, the watchword is practicality.

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

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 conctrete variations.

A knight ending is really a pawn ending.

With opposite coloured bishops the attacking side has in effect an extra piece in the shape of his
bishop.

He is not the most talented or the strongest player but certainly the most inconvenient player in the
world! His ambition is not to play actively, but to paralyse his opponents' intentions. - (on
Petrosian)

... In my match with Bronstein I was frequently confused - I could not immediately understand what
my opponent wanted to do!

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

If you are going to make your mark among masters, you have to work far harder and more
intensively, or, to put it more exactly, the work is far more complex than that needed to gain the title
of Master.

There is no better place for learning to work independently and to extend your horizon than in higher
school.

Above all else, before playing in competitions a player must have regard to his health, for if he is
suffering from ill-health he cannot hope for success. In this connection the best of all tonics is 15 to
20 days in the fresh air, in the country.

If you are weak in the endgame, you must spend more time analysing studies; in your training games
you must aim at transposing to endgames, which will help you to acquire the requisite experience.

It is a well known fact that almost all the outstanding chess-players have been first-class analysts.

In Russia the first player to devote all his life to the game, the man who initiated the habit of
adopting a profound approach to chess, was Mikhail Ivanovich Tchigorin, and we can only speak of
the existence of a Russian chess school from this time onward.

The player's greatest art consists in exploring the possibilities of bringing the game to a position in
which the normal relative values cease to exist.

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

on Botvinnik
I still remember Botvinnik's reaction to each of my games, right from the opening moves. At first he
would express amazement, then annoyance, and, finally irritation. - Anatoly Karpov

Botvinnik himself is always right at the front in chess theory; what becomes known to us today, was
known to him yesterday. And that means that what will only be understandable to us tomorrow,
Botvinnik already knows today. - David Bronstein

Botvinnik almost makes you feel that difficulty attracts him and stimulates him to the full unfolding of
his powers. Most players feel uncomfortable in difficult positions, but Botvinnik seems to enjoy them.
- Max Euwe

Where dangers threaten from every side and the smallest slackening of attention might be fatal; in a
position which requires a nerve of steel and intense concentration - Botvinnik is in his element. Max Euwe

All told, there is not a single weakness in his armour. - Rueben Fine

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

VASILY SMYSLOV {WCH 1957-1958}

by Smyslov
I have frequently stated that I regard chess as an art form, where creativity prevails over other
factors.

The first chess book that I read was Dufresne's self-tutor, published with Lasker's 'Common Sense in
Chess' as an appendix.

My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to
this that I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, for all the science and sport involved in
it.

In my opinion, the style of a player should not be formed under the influence of any single great
master.

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

Although he was an outstanding player in his heyday, he was not one of that vanguard of chess
thinkers, who blaze new trails and open new chess horizons. A populizer of Steinitz' ideas, Tarrasch
made them accessible to ordinary players.

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 - a search for truth.

A considerable role in the forming of my style was played by an early attraction to study
composition.

My fascination for studies proved highly beneficial - it assisted my the development of my aesthetic
understanding of chess, and improved my endgame play.

The Ruy Lopez occupied a constant place in my opening repertoire. In it is reflected the classical
interptetation of the problem of the centre.

The name of Alekhine is illuminated by the brilliance of his chess combinations. Alekhine possessed
an exceptionally rich chess imagination, and his skill in creating combinative complications is
incomparable.

In chess, as in life, a man is his own most dangerous opponent.

There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for chess Morphy was a great artist. His
play was captivated by freshness of thought and inexhaustible energy. He played with inspiration,
without striving to penetrate into the psychology of the opponent; he played, if one can express it so,
'pure chess'.

on Smyslov
If a man may be summed up by a single characteristic, then the most suitable one for Smyslov as a
chess player would be - assurance. Not only in his method of play but also in his movements Smyslov
gives this impression. - Svetoszar Gligoric

In whatever he says there is always a tincture of delicate irony. It is not pomposity, but good humour,
which perhaps stems from Smyslov's belief that he is above petty human weakness. - Svetoszar
Gligoric

MIKHAIL TAL {WCH 1960-1961}

by Tal
I have always thought it a matter of honour for every chess player to deserve the smile of fortune.

There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones, and mine.

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only
wide enough for one.

When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: 'Well, you
laughed when I wrote it down'.

It is difficult to play against Einsteins theory. - (on his first loss to Fischer)

Many Chess players were surprised when after the game, Fischer quietly explained: 'I had already
analyzed this possibility' in a position which I thought was not possible to forsee from the opening.

As long as my opponent has not yet castled, on each move I seek a pretext for an offensive. Even
when I realize that the king is not in danger.

For pleasure you can read the games collections of Andersson and Chigorin, but for benefit you
should study Tarrasch, Keres and Bronstein.

The greatest of the champions was, of course, Emanuel Lasker. At the chess board he accomplished
the impossible!

Without technique it is impossible to reach the top in chess, and therefore we all try to borrow from
Capablanca his wonderful, subtle technique.

In Alekhine we are captivated by his exceptional combinative talent and his whole-hearted love for
chess.

In my games I have sometimes found a combination intuitively simply feeling that it must be there.
Yet I was not able to translate my thought processes into normal human language.

I will not hide the fact that I love to hear the spectators react after a sacrifice of a piece or pawn. I
don't think that there is anything bad in such a feeling; no artist or musician is indifferent to the
reactions of the public.

They compare me with Lasker, which is an exaggerated honour. Lasker made mistakes in every game
and I only in every second one!

I believe most definitely that one must not only grapple with the problems on the board, one must
also make every effort to combat the thoughts and will of the opponent.

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

I must admit that, although I am an ardent admirerer of Grandmaster D. Bronstein, I do not quite
understand his habit of thinking about his first move from 10 minutes to half an hour.

Naturally, the psychological susceptibility of a match participant is significantly higher than a

participant in a tournament, since each game substantially changes the over-all position.

Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game
without ant errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless.

I go over many games collections and pick up something from the style of each player.

Fischer is Fischer, but a knight is a knight! - (on Fischer's claim that he could beat any woman at
knight odds)

on Tal
Tal didn't try to take refuge in the past and, caring little about the future, tried to extract as much
pleasure as possible from the present. He simply lived, not thinking about what people would say,
think or write about him. - Gennadi Sosonko

The ex-world champion has often commented that he regularly watches the chess lessons on TV
meant for lower rated players. His idea is that the repetition of the elements can never do any harm,
but rather polishes up the grandmaster's thoughts. - Alexander Kotov

It only became clear that after a careful analysis that his opponent's mistakes were caused by the
extreme variety and difficulty of the problems that Tal set them. - Mark Dvoretsky

I personally never stood out amongst my contemporaries, because I always had to progress by hard
work. Tal, on the other hand, there is an example of someone who did not have to work at it. Mikhail Botvinnik

We are all, in a sense, Tal's children; I grew up on his games and in my childhood I played in such a
style. - Vladimir Kramnik

Tal's combinations often exert a sort of paralysing influence on the opponent's play. It would seem
that the element of surprise plays a big part in this. - Mark Taimanov

TIGRAN PETROSIAN {WCH 1963-1969}

by Petrosian
They knock me for my draws, for my style, they knock me for everything I do.

As to me, to be quite honest I feel rather ill at ease because against me Benko plays calmly and
clearly. - (on opponent Pal Benko)

today many players, especially young ones, think that the older openings are so thoroughly
analysed that nothing more can be tried. This is a serious mistake. The methods of positional play
become deeper and finer each year. Being well acquainted with them it is possible even in openings
which seem to be fully explored to find ways to create a real fight.

Turning chess into poker and hoping for a 'bluff' is not one of my convictions.

It is easy to play against the young players, for me they are like an open book.

The criterion of real strength is a deep penetration into the secrets of a position.

Even the most distinguished players have in their careers experienced severe disappointments due to
ignorance of the best lines or suspension of their own common sense.

Oh, those exclamation points! How they erode the innocent soul of the amateur, removing all hope of
allowing him to examine another player's ideas critically!

Occasionally an opening is used against an opponent who is known to favour it himself. The idea is
to force him to fight against his own weapons, when he will have to face not only real dangers but
very often imaginary ones as well.

In some places words have been replaced by symbols which, like amulets from a witch's bag, have
the power to consume the living spirit of chess.

Fischer is the first big-time professional in chess, and, in order to achieve success, he will resort to
any means.

on Petrosian
He is a fine and warm person who carries his responsible and high position as Champion of the
World with great weight and dignity. - Gregor Piatigorsky

Nobody likes to play a quiet positional game against the world champion. - Jan Hein Donner

He is not the most talented or the strongest player but certainly the most inconvenient player in the
world! His ambition is not to play actively, but to paralyse his opponents intentions. - Mikhail
Botvinnik

Now how the hell can I be Petrosian's second if it makes me sick to watch how he plays? - Victor
Kortchnoi

One cannot help but admire the devilish determination and ingenuity of this man. - Victor
Kortchnoi

BORIS SPASSKY {WCH 1969-1972}

by Spassky
There is only one thing in chess that Fischer does without pleasure - to lose !

When you play Bobby, it is not a question if you win or lose. It is a question if you survive.

I can't play with you because I don't understand the way you play or your train of thought. - (to
Karpov)

After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore
hypocrisy is everywhere.

If they had played 150 games at full strength, they would be in a lunatic asylum by now. - (on
Kasparov and Karpov, 1987)

The shortcoming of hanging pawns is that they present a convenient target for attack. As the
exchange of men proceeds, their potential strength lessens and during the endgame they turn out, as
a rule, to be weak.

The power of hanging pawns is based precisely in their mobility, in their ability to create acute
situations instantly.

Often, in the Ruy Lopez, one must be patient, wait and carry on a lengthy and wearisome struggle.

He considered that chess was closest to an art, and he was able to demonstrate this with his
optimistic, eternally youthful play. - (on Alekhine)

Bobby Fisher came back to chess! It was a miracle! I could never have missed it. No way!

The best indicator of a chess player's form is his ability to sense the climax of the game.

The best tournament that I have ever played in was in 1950. It was great a waiter came to you
during the game, and you could order anything you wanted to drink (even some vodka, if you liked).
Pity, there are no longer tournaments organized in this manner

on Spassky
When I began consciously working on myself and devising a universalism of the game, I did so
mostly because Spassky's game was distinguished by universalism. - Anatoly Karpov

I consider myself to be an idler, too, but the dimensions of Spassky's laziness were astounding. Anatoly Karpov

I'm not afraid of him. He's afraid of me. I'm not afraid of him. - Bobby Fischer

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it. - Bobby
Fischer

Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he's mating or being mated. Bobby Fischer

As a fellow traveller and a living witness of Spassky's progress, I can testify that I know no man who
is more capable of self-perfection than Spassky. - Victor Kortchnoi

From being an average member of society - featureless, unreasoning, submissive - he has become an
independent, discerning thinker, and has gradually turned into a dissident. - Victor Kortchnoi

ROBERT JAMES FISCHER {WCH 1972-1975}

by Fischer
All that matters on the chessboard is good moves.

A strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will is required to become a great chess
player.

Chess is life.

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind.

I add status to any tournament I attend.

I despise the media.

I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess. Others give only 2 percent.

I know people who have all the will in the world, but still can't play good chess.

I like the moment I break a man's ego.

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

Its just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something.

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

There are tough players and nice guys, and I'm a tough player.

You can only get good at Chess if you love the game.

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

Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate
body from mind.

All I ever want to do is just play chess.

Best by test. (on 1. e4)

Chess demands total concentration.

Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good
reason not to.

Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it.

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

I'm not afraid of him. He's afraid of me. I'm not afraid of him. (on Spassky)

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody
everything, that's all.

I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.

I like to make them squirm.

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

If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me.

If you don't win, it's not a great tragedy - the worst that happens is that you lose a game.

Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all.

My sister bought me a set at a candy store and taught me the moves.

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on
fact.

Tactics flow from a superior position.

That's what chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you
one.

The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just
steering for equality.

When I was eleven, I just got good.

They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know.
They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the
world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

It's little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine.

Steinitz was the most profound opening analyst of all time. He was more theorist than player, but
nonetheless he was the strongest player of his day. Playing over his games, I discover that they are
completely modern; where Morphy and Steinitz rejected the fianchetto, Steinitz embraced it. In
addition, he understood all of the positional concepts which modern players hold so dear, and thus with Steinitz, must be considered the first modern player.

Staunton appears to have been afraid to meet Morphy and I think his fears were well-founded.
Morphy would have beaten him, but it wouldn't have been the one-sided encounter that many writers
now think it would. It would have been a great struggle.

A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and
played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser, he would come out the loser.
Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today ...

He understood more about the use of squares than did Morphy, and contributed a great deal more to
chess theory. - (on Wilhelm Steinitz)

Alekhine developed as a player much more slowly than most. In his twenties, he was an atrocious
chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties.

Alekhine is a player I've never really understood. He always wanted a superior centre; he
manoeuvred his pieces toward the kingside, and around the 25th move, began to mate his opponent.
He disliked exchanges, preferring to play with many pieces on the board. His play was fantastically
complicated, more so than any player before or since.

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

Chess is a matter of delicate judgement, knowing when to punch and how to duck.

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know
as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the
dead they wouldnt do well. Theyd get bad openings.

When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who
knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties before he

died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak
about any chess player like that, before or since.

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he
believed was true, he said what he felt. He wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the
twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead.
It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. Its a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

Too many times, people don't try their best. They don't have the keen spirit; the winning spirit. And
once you make it you've got to guard your reputation - every day go in like an unknown to prove
yourself. That's why I don't clown around. I don't believe in wasting time. My goal is to win the
World Chess Championship; to beat the Russians. I take this very seriously.

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

The system set up by F.I.D.E. ... ensures that there will always be a Russian world champion ... The
Russians arranged it that way. - 1962

Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he's mating or being mated.

I could give any woman in the world a piece and a move; to Gaprindashvili even, a knight.

on Fischer
Bobby Fischer started off each game with a great advantage: after the opening he had used less time
than his opponent and thus had more time available later on. The major reason why he never hasd
serious time pressure was that his rapid opening play simply left sufficient time for the middlegame.
- Edmar Mednis

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

My God, Bobby Fischer plays so simply! - Alexei Suetin

I was struck by his gaze. He was not at all the way he looked in photographs. I didn't see any severity
in him, but rather a sort of gentleness and patience. (1st meeting with Fischer)Incidentally, I never
saw that in him again. - Anatoly Karpov

I believe that Fischer surpassed all the former and currently living grandmasters in the ability to
produce and process chess ideas. - Anatoly Karpov

It seems to me that the reason for his tragic break with the chess world was the excessive demands he
placed on himself as world champion. The solution to this stress was obvious - he stopped playing
altogether. - Anatoly Karpov

Fischer's integrity was evident in any one of his actions. Even his shortcomings were inseparable
from him; they were aspects of his integrity. - Anatoly Karpov

Fischer's strength can be evaluated only in comparison with the best chess players who surrounded
him. - Anatoly Karpov

It is even more absurd to compare Fischer's chess strength with that of Kasparov, in whatever way,
than it is to compare Fischer and me. - Anatoly Karpov

If only I had had my duel with Fischer, my fighting level would be of a higher order. Once I had
attained and mastered such a level - a level which for Kasparov is completely unattainable - I would
have recalled it whenever necessary. - Anatoly Karpov

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

It is not mere magniloquence to suggest that he is the strongest fourteen year old chessplayer who
has ever lived. - Arthur Bisguier

There is only one thing in chess that Fischer does without pleasure - to lose ! - Boris Spassky

When you play Bobby, it is not a question if you win or lose. It is a question if you survive. - Boris
Spassky

Bobby Fisher came back to chess! It was a miracle! I could never have missed it. No way! - Boris
Spassky

Fischer was a master of clarity and a king of artful positioning. His opponents would see where he
was going but were powerless to stop him. - Bruce Pandolfini

By the beauty of his games, the clarity of his play, and the brilliance of his ideas, Fischer made
himself an artist of the same stature as Brahms, Rembrandt, and Shakespeare. - Bruce Pandolfini

It was clear to me that the vulnerable point of the American Grandmaster (Fischer) was in doubleedged, hanging, irrational positions, where he often failed to find a win even in a won position. David Levy

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed. - (after the 1992 Fischer - Spassky
rematch) - Garry Kasparov

Fischers beautiful chess and his immortal games will stand forever as a central pillar in the history
of our game. - Garry Kasparov

It is with justice that he spent his final days in Iceland, the site of his greatest triumph. There he has
always been loved and seen in the best possible way: as a chessplayer. - Garry Kasparov

Fischer's spectacular career and his undisputed prominence in chess would make any additional
superlatives sound banal. - Gregor Piatigorsky

Play out a boring game to the end and funny things can happen; Fischer knew it. - Hans Ree

In Fischer's hands, a slight theoretical advantage is as good as being a queen ahead. - Isaac
Kashdan

A great player and a great example for many. His book My 60 Memorable Games had a big impact
on me. It is a shame he didn't continue to enrich the world of chess with his unparalleled
understanding after 1972. - Jan Timman

Not only will I predict his triumph over Botvinnik, but I'll go further and say that he'll probably be
the greatest chess player that ever lived. - John Collins

Bobby is the finest Chess player this country ever produced. His memory for the moves, his brilliance
in dreaming up combinations, and his fierce determination to win are uncanny. - John Collins

Fischer wanted to give the Russians a taste of their own medicine. - Larry Evans

Robert Fischer is a law unto himself. - Larry Evans

The most individualistic, intransigent, uncommunicative, uncooperative, solitary, self-contained and

independent chess master of all time, the loneliest chess champion in the world. He is also the
strongest player in the world. In fact, the strongest player who ever lived. - Larry Evans

The chess heroes nowadays should not forget that it was owing to Fischer that they are living today
in four- and five- star hotels, getting appearance fees, etc. - Lev Khariton

There's never before been a Chess player with such a thorough knowledge of the intracacies of the
game and such an absolutely indominitable will to win. I think Bobby will be the greatest player that
ever lived. - Lisa Lane

A man without frontiers. He didn't divide the East and the West, he brought them together in their
admiration for him. - Ljubomir Ljubojevic

His moves did not make sense at least to all the rest of us they didn't. We were playing chess,
Fischer was playing something else, call it what you will. Naturally, there would come a time when
we finally would understand what those moves had been about. But by then it was too late. We were
dead. - Mark Taimanov

Fischer plays like a machine, and in fact he is essentially a machine. But I am a man! A computer
has never yet won against a grandmaster. Therefore I am confident of success. - (before losing his
Candidates' match 6-0) - Mark Taimanov

Bobby just drops the pieces and they fall on the right squares. - Miguel Najdorf

Fischer prefers to enter Chess history alone. - Miguel Najdorf

Pressmen have been doing Fischer wrong all his life. He loves chess immensely and he is a
wonderful friend. - Miguel Quinteros

Suddenly it was obvious to me in my analysis I had missed what Fischer had found with the greatest
of ease at the board. - Mikhail Botvinnik

When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: "Well, you
laughed when I wrote it down" - Mikhail Tal

It is difficult to play against Einsteins theory. - (on his first loss to Fischer) - Mikhail Tal

Many Chess players were surprised when after the game, Fischer quietly explained: 'I had already
analyzed this possibility' in a position which I thought was not possible to forsee from the opening. Mikhail Tal

I am 99 per cent sure that I have been playing against the chess legend. It's tremendously exciting,"
he said. In October last year, in the first of their four confrontations, Nigel lost 0:8, although he is
one of the world's best speed chess players. "In my opinion Fischer is a much stronger speed chess
player than Kasparov, which is incredible when one considers that at 58 he is virtually a geriatric in
terms of the modern game," Nigel said. (quoted at ChessBase.com in 2001) - Nigel Short

In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody. - Paul Keres

Fischer is the first big-time professional in chess, and, in order to achieve success, he will resort to
any means. - Tigran Petrosian

The only positive contribution to chess from Fischer in the last 20 years. - (on the Fischer clock) Victor Kortchnoi

Bobby is the most misunderstood, misquoted celebrity walking the face of the earth. - Yasser
Seirawan

Do you realize Fischer almost never has any bad pieces? He exchanges them, and the bad pieces
remain with his opponent. - Yuri Balashov

Fischer is completely natural. He plays no roles. He's like a child - very, very simple. - Zita
Rajscanyi

You could say that both Fischer and Carlsen had or have the ability to let chess look simple. Viswanathan Anand

But you see when I play a game of Bobby, there is no style. Bobby played perfectly. And perfection
has no style. - Miguel Najdorf

It's easy to get obsessed with chess. That's what happened with Fischer and Paul Morphy. I don't
have that same obsession. -Magnus Carlsen

In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America. - Garry Kasparov

ANATOLY KARPOV {WCH 1975-1985}

by Karpov
Chess is everything: art, science, and sport.

Had I undergone the severe nursery and kindergarten schools, with their obliteration of personal
responsibility, their indifference, their enforced adherence to the principle of " do as everyone else
does", their adherence to a culture of kitsch and cliche, and the struggle for everything - for a toy or
a place in the clique, for praise from the teacher or attention from the group - had I experienced this,
I'm convinced I would have turned out differently, more conforming and less independent, and I
never would have achieved what I have.

Pawns not only create the sketch for the whole painting, they are also the soil, the foundation, of any
position.

The truth is that my chess development was nothing out of the ordinary, and it proceeded probably at
a pace no faster than others.

I still remember Botvinnik's reaction to each of my games, right from the opening moves. At first he
would express amazement, then annoyance, and, finally irritation.

I didn't picture myself as even a grandmaster, to say nothing of aspiring to the chess crown. This was
not because I was timid - I wasn't - but because I simply lived in one world, and the grandmasters
existed in a completely different one. People like that were not really even people, but like gods or
mythical heroes.

By all means examine the games of the great chess players, but don't swallow them whole. Their
games are valuable not for their separate moves, but for their vision of chess, their way of thinking.

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

As far as Kortchnoi the chess player is concerned, he fulfilled himself as much as his strength and
talent allowed.

My association with Kortchnoi is linked with many difficult moments, dark thoughts,
disappointments, and despair, but I have nothing against Kortchnoi.

I have heard so many times that Kortchnoi had the great misfortune of meeting me when his best
playing was already behind him. Nothing of the sort! Kortchnoi's best years arrived exactly at the
time he battled me .

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

The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant
coaches.

When I began consciously working on myself and devising a universalism of the game, I did so
mostly because Spassky's game was distinguished by universalism.

I consider myself to be an idler, too, but the dimensions of Spassky's laziness were astounding.

With all his outward aplomb, ostentatious strength, and demonstrative assurance, Kortchnoi was
always a rather unstable and doubting person.

I was struck by his gaze. He was not at all the way he looked in photographs. I didn't see any severity
in him, but rather a sort of gentleness and patience. Incidentally, I never saw that in him again. (on
his 1st meeting with Fischer)

I believe that Fischer surpassed all the former and currently living grandmasters in the ability to
produce and process chess ideas.

It seems to me that the reason for his tragic break with the chess world was the excessive demands he
placed on himself as world champion. The solution to this stress was obvious - he stopped playing
altogether. (on Fischer)

Fischer's integrity was evident in any one of his actions. Even his shortcomings were inseparable
from him; they were aspects of his integrity.

Fischer's strength can be evaluated only in comparison with the best chess players who surrounded
him.

It is even more absurd to compare Fischer's chess strength with that of Kasparov, in whatever way,
than it is to compare Fischer and me.

The rule by which a victor does not drop in his rating is logical, but unfair if we want the ELO
coefficient to be an indicator of the true strength of a chess player relative to his contemporaries.

For six years now I've tried to kindle anger in myself toward Kasparov and fuse my anger into a
sword with which I can truly smite him at least once, but I can't. He's just not interesting to me, and
that's all there is to it.

I know of no other grandmaster in our country, or the world, who has received such allencompasing, massive support from the authorities. - on Kasparov

If only I had had my duel with Fischer, my fighting level would be of a higher order. Once I had
attained and mastered such a level - a level which for Kasparov is completely unattainable - I would
have recalled it whenever necessary.

Kasparov and I have nothing in common. For me chess was the end, for him it has merely been the
means.

He's unprincipled. - (on Kasparov)

The days when it was possible to win a serious game only by merit of sporting character or depth of
chess understanding have vanished forever. Chess knowledge has become dominant, bypassing all
the other factors that contribute to success.

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

I lost the match. I blame only myself for this. There were many opportunities to win. But I missed
them, no one else. - (on Lyons/New York Match with Kasparov)

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

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

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

He won a number of well-known games, by right from the opening holding his opponent in a vice
prepared at home. And his grip was strong: after seizing his victim, he would no longer release him.
- (on Alekhine)

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

Chess is everything: art, science, and sport.

Kortchnoi has a stable opening repertoire, with which he aims to lure his opponents into schemes
where he is well versed.

When playing against Kortchnoi you have to think not only about the current moves, but also about
what the opponent may take the liberty of doing, and this is not the best atmosphere for creativity.

Without false modesty I can say that in the whole of chess history, tournaments where on the one
hand, all the stars of the chess world are gathered together, and on the other, the winner has
demonstrated such notable superiority over the remaining contstants, can be counted on your
fingers. - (following his 11/13 victory in Linares 1993)

Kortchnoi rarely declines any opportunity to gain material.

An amusing fact: as far as I can recall, when playing the Ruy Lopez I have not yet once in my life
had to face the Marshall Attack!

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

on Karpov
If they had played 150 games at full strength, they would be in a lunatic asylum by now. - (on
Kasparov & Karpov, 1987) - Boris Spassky

I agree with the opinion expressed by many commentators that in the art of delicate strategic
manoeuvring Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov have no equals. - David Bronstein

I can't play with you because I don't understand the way you play or your train of thought. - Boris
Spassky

The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession. Mikhail Botvinnik

GARRY KASPAROV {WCH 1985-2000}

by Kasparov
Chess is mental torture.
My opponent is Short and the match will be short. - Garry's quip before his
1993 PCA World Championship match with Nigel Short
When your house is on fire, you cant be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we
say in chess, if your King is under attack, don't worry about losing a pawn on the
queenside.
The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed. - (on Fischer
after his 1992 rematch with Spassky)
Botvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations
in ordinary life. He used to call chess a typical inexact problem similar to those
which people are always having to solve in everyday life.

I have never said this before, but I think he is the only one who plays as well as I
did at the same age. - (on Kramnik)
By strictly observing Botvinnik's rule regarding the thorough analysis of one's
own games, with the years I have come to realize that this provides the
foundation for the continuos development of chess mastery.
Like Dvoretsky, I think that (other things being equal) the analytical method of
studying chess must give you a colossal advantage over the chess pragmatist,
and that there can be no certainty in chess without analysis. I personally
acquired these views from my sessions with Mikhail Botvinnik, and they laid the
foundations of my chess-playing life.
Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is the
willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of
intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. Given the
opportunity, I must have the guts to explode the game, to upend my opponent's
thinking and, in so doing, unnerve him. So it is in business: One does not
succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate
every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.
The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values
of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural,
political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of
their play.
I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and
Fischer.
Tarrasch's 'dogmas' are not eternal truisms, but merely instructional material
presented in an accessible and witty form, those necessary rudiments from
which one can begin to grasp the secrets of chess
In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned
figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in
America.
Capablanca possessed an amazing ability to quickly see into a position and
intuitively grasp its main features. His style, one of the purest, most crystalclear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one with his logic.
Who else in chess history has won so many serious games with the help of
brilliant tactical strokes? - (on Alekhine)
When I was preparing for one term's work in the Botvinnik school I had to spend
a lot of time on king and pawn endings. So when I came to a tricky position in
my own games I knew the winning method.

It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the

members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your
programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm
clock made me feel any better.
Chess is far too complex to be definitively solved with any technology we can
conceive of today. However, our looked-down-upon cousin, checkers, or
draughts, suffered this fate quite recently thanks to the work of Jonathan
Schaeffer at the University of Alberta and his unbeatable program Chinook.
Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general
intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might
be.
The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The
ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent.
Brute-force programs play the best chess, so why bother with anything else?
Why waste time and money experimenting with new and innovative ideas when
we already know what works? Such thinking should horrify anyone worthy of the
name of scientist, but it seems, tragically, to be the norm. Our best minds have
gone into financial engineering instead of real engineering, with catastrophic
results for both sectors.
Perhaps chess is the wrong game for the times. Poker is now everywhere, as
amateurs dream of winning millions and being on television for playing a card
game whose complexities can be detailed on a single piece of paper.
Winning is not a secret that belongs to a very few, winning is something that we
can learn by studying ourselves, studying the environment and making
ourselves ready for any challenge that is in front of us.
Chess continues to advance over time, so the players of the future will
inevitably surpass me in the quality of their play, assuming the rules and
regulations allow them to play serious chess. But it will likely be a long time
before anyone spends 20 consecutive years as number, one as I did.
Fischers beautiful chess and his immortal games will stand forever as a central
pillar in the history of our game.
It is with justice that he spent his final days in Iceland, the site of his greatest
triumph. There he has always been loved and seen in the best possible way: as
a chessplayer. - (on Bobby Fischer)
I have found that after 1.d4 there are more opportunities for richer play.
Though I would have liked my chances in a rematch in 1998 if I were better
prepared, it was clear then that computer superiority over humans in chess had
always been just a matter of time.

The highest art of the chessplayer lies in not allowing your opponent to show
you what he can do.
The inspirational games of Alekander Alekhine, my first chess hero, find a place
alongside the inspirational character of Winston Churchill, whose words and
books I still turn to regularly.
Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together
in the human mind and are refined and improved by experience.
The stock market and the gridiron and the battlefield aren't as tidy as the
chessboard, but in all of them, a single, simple rule holds true: make good
decisions and you'll succeed; make bad ones and you'll fail.
Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no
one had done before.
Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil
them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial
compared to strategy.
With each success the ability to change is reduced. My longtime friend and
coach, Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, aptly compared it to being dipped in bronze.
Each victory added another coat.
Morphy was so far ahead of his time that it took another quarter century for
these principles of development and attack to be rediscovered and formulated.
For me, chess is a language, and if it's not my native tongue, it is one I learned
via the immersion method at a young age.
The technical phase can be boring because there is little opportunity for
creavivity, for art. Boredom leads to complacency and mistakes.
I've seen - both in myself and my competitors - how satisfaction can lead to a
lack of vigilance, then to mistakes and missed opportunities.
There can be no finer example of the inspiring powers of competition to shatter
the status quo than Hungary's Judit Polgar.
Thanks to the Polgars the adjective men's before events and the "affirmative
action" women's titles such as Woman Grandmaster have become
anachronisms (though thay are still in use).
Ironically, the main task of chess software companies today is to find ways to
make the program weaker, not stronger, and to provide enough options that any
user can pick from different levels and the machine will try to make enough
mistakes to give him a chance.

Setbacks and losses are both inevitable and essential if you're going to improve
and become a good, even great, competitor. The art is in avoiding catastrophic
losses in the key battles.
Few things are as psychologically brutal as chess.
You can't overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as
some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and
strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life.
Nervous energy is the ammunition we take into any mental battle. If you don't
have enough of it, your concentration will fade. If you have a surplus, the results
will explode.
Once he fixated on an idea, his theoretical point became more important to him
than winning, and this lack of competitive pragmatism prevented him from
making it to the top. - (on Mikhail Chigorin)
Had Chigorin been able to rein in his fantasy on just a few occasions, the world
might have had its first Russian champion decades before Alekhine.
A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and
a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy
and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the
people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.
It's true that in chess as in politics, fund-raising and glad-handing matter.
After reaching the heights, Bronstein was unable to maintain his concentration
and play his best chess. He committed several of the worst errors of his career
during his match with Botvinnik.
Inevitably the maxchines must win, but there is still a long way to go before a
human on his or her best day is unable to defeat the best computer.
To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age
(before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper
columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players
had made at the board.
The biggest problem I see among people who want to excel in chess - and in
business and in life in general - is not trusting their instincts enough.
If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension
to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an
inferior choice.

All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown
is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after
Kasparov. - (Garry's prophetic comment in 1987)
Vishy is a brilliant player. But it is very difficult to compete at 40. He is up
against people half his age. I will be surprised if he can go on any longer. He can
fight against anyone but time. (2009)
With so many victories coming relatively easily to his immense talent and
fighting spirit, the final crucial ingredient of relentless work will guarantee his
place in history. - (on Magnus Carlsen)

on Kasparov
For six years now I've tried to kindle anger in myself toward Kasparov and fuse
my anger into a sword with which I can truly smite him at least once, but I can't.
He's just not interesting to me, and that's all there is to it. - Anatoly Karpov
I know of no other grandmaster in our country, or the world, who has received
such all-encompasing, massive support from the authorities. - Anatoly Karpov
Kasparov and I have nothing in common. For me chess was the end, for him it
has merely been the means. - Anatoly Karpov
He's unprincipled. - Anatoly Karpov
To have a brilliant boy at your side all the time and to work with him is the
greatest of pleasures imaginable. - Klara Kasparov
He has an extreme capacity for work, extreme determination to win and
extreme perfectionism. - Magnus Carleson
If Kasparov continues to play like this they'll have to deduct betting tax from his
winnings - he's a real gambler. - (on Kasparov's time scrambles) - Michael
Stean
The future of chess lies in the hands of this young man. - (0n Kasparov at age
11) - Mikhail Botvinnik
Almost everyone I know possesses a volume or two of Kasparov's classic 'My
Great Predecessors' but I have found again and again that people simply have
not read it. At some point they become intimidated by the labrythine variations.
I think there is a moral there. - Nigel Short
I'm sorry for you, Garry, because the happiest day of your life is already over. (to Kasparov immediately following his victory in the World Championship on
November 10, 1985) - Rhona Petrosian

I thought I was playing the World Champion - not some 27 - eyed monster who
sees everything. - (on losing May 1986 match 5-1/2 - 1/2) - Tony Miles
In 1995 I played a match against [Kasparov] but it is amazing that in the next
ten years I was second or third in the rankingsmost of the times second and
he was first for this entire periodand we just never played each other. Viswanathan Anand
Everyone has their nemesis. For me it was clearly Kasparov. I dont think I want
to make excuses for that. - Viswanathan Anand
If they had played 150 games at full strength, they would be in a lunatic asylum
by now. - (on Kasparov & Karpov, 1987) - Boris Spassky
I agree with the opinion expressed by many commentators that in the art of
delicate strategic manoeuvring Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov have no
equals. - David Bronstein
Look at Garry Kasparov. After he loses, invariably he wins the next game. He
just kills the guy. That's something thaw we have to learn to be able to do. Maurice Ashley

VLADIMIR KRAMNIK {WCH 2000-?}

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

I have no time for any particular interests apart from chess.

It is rightly said that the most difficult thing in chess is winning a won position.
Playing blindfold, like it or not, you have to make your body work at full power,
otherwise you risk losing your orientation at the board.
We are all, in a sense, Tal's children; I grew up on his games and in my
childhood I played in such a style.
Playing rapid chess, one can lose the habit of concentrating for several hours in
serious chess. That is why, if a player has big aims, he should limit his rapidplay
in favour of serious chess.
Every month I look through some ten thousand games, so not as to miss any
new ideas and trends.
On the whole, the life of a chess professional is not as easy as it appears at first
sight. One needs to devote some ten hours a day to chess and to everything
connected with it - physical and psycholgical preparation.
When I was a child I liked the games of Capablanca, and later I was captivated
by Alekhine's play.
In the current FIDE World Championship, on the knock-out system, weaker
players have good chances. Those, who in a long match would practically have
no chance, here may creep through.
I dont know whether computers are improving the style of play, I know they are
changing it. Chess has become a different game, one could say that computers
have changed the world of chess. That is pretty clear.
I cannot see myself playing beyond the age of 40.
Chess is like body-building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape. It is the
same with your brain chess is a matter of daily training.
Look at the catastrophic record Vishy Anand has against Garry Kasparov.
Kasparov managed to beat him almost everywhere they played, even though
Vishy Anand has belonged to the absolute top players in the world for fifteen
years. This difference cannot be explained purely in chess terms, there must
have been some psychology.
Part of my preparation for the World Champion match against Kasparov was to
be ready for his off-board tactics. I did not to react to them at all. Once you start
thinking about these things during the game, even analysing them, youre
caught.

on Kramnik
I have never said this before, but I think he is the only one who plays as well as I
did at the same age. - Garry Kasparov
The taunt from Kramnik about 'lending' me the title, was ridiculous. Viswanathan Anand

ANAND VISWANATHAN {WCH 2007-?}

by Anand
Just before a game, I try to keep a clear mind so that I can focus better. I'm the
kind of person who plays fast and relies a lot on intuition, so being at peace with
myself is vital. Saying my daily prayers helps me achieve this heightened state
of mind.
Chess is like a language, the top players are very fluent at it. Talent can be
developed scientifically but you have to find first what you are good at.
Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it.
In 1996, the players at the VSB tournament in Amsterdam sent me a card for
my wedding with this dedication 'Anand congrats on your wedding. You were a
great player, now be ready to lose 50 points'.

For me, chess is not a profession. It is a way of life, a passion. People may feel
that I have conquered the peak and will not have to struggle. Financially,
perhaps that is true; but as far as chess goes, Im still learning a lot!
When I started out playing chess as a kid I thought I should be world champion.
As a kid you have no idea what that means and you only sort of picture it. It is
hard to imagine that I waited all those years and it happened in a late stage of
my career.
It is important that you dont let your opponent impose his style of play on you.
A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time
he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very
important to avoid.
In 1995 I played a match against [Kasparov] but it is amazing that in the next
ten years I was second or third in the rankingsmost of the times second and
he was first for this entire periodand we just never played each other.
I like to think that the arc of my own career has in some ways mirrored the
journey of chess. I learned to play in India, then moved to Spain so I could play
the European circuit, and won my first world championship in Iran. It's nice
when your place in chess history has something to do with the bigger picture.
Everyone has their nemesis. For me it was clearly Kasparov. I dont think I want
to make excuses for that.
In a way players at the top should try to promote the game in their own
countries as that is the legacy that makes you feel proud. If you have not done
that you have failed as a sportsperson.
For every door the computers have closed they have opened a new one.
Confidence is very important even pretending to be confident. If you make a
mistake but do not let your opponent see what you are thinking then he may
overlook the mistake.
I would never suggest to anyone that they drop school for chess. First of all
even if you can make it in chess, your social skills need to be developed there.
It is very difficult to play a single blitz game! You want to play for a long time. So
I tend not to do that anymore.
You could say that both Fischer and Carlsen had or have the ability to let chess
look simple.
The taunt from Kramnik about 'lending' me the title, was ridiculous.

on Anand
He's been around for almost 20 years and he's gradually and slowly persevered
and come to the zenith of his profession. He won the world title in 2007. He
exemplifies superb sportsman spirit. He exemplifies the spirit of India. - Geet
Sethi
Vishy is a brilliant player. But it is very difficult to compete at 40. He is up
against people half his age. I will be surprised if he can go on any longer. He can
fight against anyone but time. - Garry Kasparov
Look at the catastrophic record Vishy Anand has against Garry Kasparov.
Kasparov managed to beat him almost everywhere they played, even though
Vishy Anand has belonged to the absolute top players in the world for fifteen
years. This difference cannot be explained purely in chess terms, there must
have been some psychology. - Vladimir Kramnik
Im out, now youre the oldest! Youre the dinosaur now! - (comments upon his
own retirement) - Garry Kasparov
The impact that Vishy made for chess in India is unsurpassed. He is a national
hero in his homeland and he revolutionized Indian chess. - Susan Polgar