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Chessville Chess
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New Additions - Part Five New quotes that we haven't even had time to categorize yet!
Tactics are it. People under 2000 shouldn’t study anything else. You need to work on the ability to count and calculate. – Mig Greengard A book that moved me up a level. It was clear that no matter how much Chernev tried to break down every move, at the end of the day some guy made a mistake, the other guy punished it, and the only way that happens is tactically. That’s what chess is. Chess is tactics. – Mig Greengard (on Chernev’s Logical Chess Move By Move) Playing is the harshest form of feedback because it’s the other person’s ideas directly against yours. Why do you make a move? Because you think it’s the best move on the board. When somebody else shows you that it’s not, well then you’ve learned something there - very quickly. – Mig Greengard It’s something that’s taken so seriously as a display of intellect, but it’s not something that’s taken seriously as a game or as a competition. That’s unique to North America I think…that sort of attitude, the geekiness of it. – Mig Greengard There aren't fewer draws, fans don't like it, the players don't like it, sponsors don't seem to care, and the chess is much worse. – Mig Greengard (on the faster FIDE time controls) Hey, play better. What else are you going to do? It’s a sport. There’s no affirmative action program for native-born Americans. – Mig Greengard (on American chessplayers who complain about the Russian players who’ve immigrated to the US and win most of the tournaments) There is no viable career path for chessplayers in the U.S. The smart kid goes to college and gets a degree so he can have a career. You’ve either got to have the super talent to break out and make money early - Fischer, Kamsky - or the love and dedication to grind out a living. With no Fischer boom to inspire that irrational fascination, U.S. chess has dried up in creating GMs. – Mig Greengard Chess is an international language. – Edward Lasker Why do I want to give chess lessons? – Bobby Fischer (on why he didn’t have a chess trainer) Chess is a combination of three phases of the game: opening, middlegame, endgame. Fischer Random is basically removing one, and saying it’s better. How can you remove a phase of the game to create something that is larger, that is better? Basically you’re saying I don’t like openings. That’s fine, but that’s you. You can’t say that you’re improving chess by amputating a big chunk of it. The proponents of Fischer Random want a perpetual middlegame, because that’s what it is. It’s a fun thing you can do with chess pieces. It uses the same rules, but at the end of the day it’s less than the whole. Almost by definition it is. I understand the concern about openings, but that’s been going on for a hundred years. – Mig Greengard Chess writing has always been by Grandmasters for Grandmasters, about Grandmasters. They all write about each other so they tread very lightly. The guy you criticize today is going to be writing about you tomorrow. – Mig Greengard Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding. – Francois de La Rochefoucald Play over every game you see in any magazine or book. I do mean "every" game. Give up sleep if you have to. Then play more games. – Keith Hayward (on how to improve) I don’t fear any opponent, only myself. When I’m in good form I’m not afraid of anybody. When I’m in bad form, I can lose to anybody. – Anatoly Karpov This match cannot end normally. Either I’ll be taken to hospital or else he’ll be taken to the insane asylum. – Anatoly Karpov (on the potential match against Fischer in ’75) Everyone knows that for him, as for all Soviet sportsmen, conditions were created which our colleagues in the West could only dream about. I support the decision of the Soviet Chess Federation to strip him of his titles and rights to represent the Soviet school of chess on the world stage. – Anatoly Karpov (on Korchnoi and his defection from the USSR in 1976) Many ideas grow better when they are transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up. – Oliver Wendell Holmes A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking. – Source Unknown Those who can't hear the music, think the dancer is mad. – Source Unknown What we see depends mainly on what we look for. – John Lubbock Capablanca invariably chose the right option, no matter how intricate the position. – Garry Kasparov Capablanca was possibly the greatest player in the entire history of chess. – Bobby Fischer Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I understand that many people are fighting to maintain the traditional time control - 7-hour games - while others are fighting to shorten it. This is my take on it. We need to have both time controls and we need to value the events with both time controls. I realize that “perfect chess” cannot be produced with the rapid or blitz time control as some would argue. You have no disagreement from me there. However, one must take the economics of chess into consideration. It is hard to ask the audience to be patient with a 7-8 hour game. They can go have lunch, take a short nap and there is no progress on the board. Because of this, chess is not so exciting for television, which dramatically reduces the potential sponsorships. However, in a blitz or rapid game, it creates excitement for the audience and the sponsors, which in turn put money in the players’ pockets. So what is more important? Perfect chess or money to pay your rent? – Susan Polgar I firmly believe that chess can help children develop mental disciplines, analytical skills, strategic thinking skills, and will help children excel in schools and in life. – Susan Polgar He was the best-read player of his time, and is known to have been familiar with books such as Bilguer's Handbuch and Staunton's The Chess Player's Handbook, among others. – Bobby Fischer (on Morphy) Chess players generally may be said to fall into two main divisions: the ones who have rules, axioms and master plans and stick to them dogmatically; and the ones who know the rules and axioms but who are quick to take advantage of unforeseen developments. Tarrasch, as perhaps the prime representative of the German school, is much closer to the first category. Steinitz made many rules but considered himself above them, whereas Tarrasch always followed his own rules, but so brilliantly that he is among the greatest players. Bobby Fischer Tarrasch's play was razor-sharp, and in spite of his devotion to this supposedly scientific method of play, his game was often witty and bright. He was a great opening theorist, vastly superior to Emanuel Lasker, for example, who was a coffeehouse player. – Bobby Fischer Lasker knew nothing about openings and didn't understand positional chess. – Bobby Fischer The Russians call Chigorin, who had been dead for 60 years, the father of the Soviet style of chess; he was, in fact, one of the last of the Romantic School and a good all-round player in spite of the fact that almost all of his opening novelties have long been discarded. He was the finest endgame player of his time. He had a very aggressive style, and thus was a great attacking player. – Bobby Fischer Alekhine is a player I've never really understood; yet, strangely, if you've seen one Alekhine game you've seen them all. He always wanted a superior center; he maneuvered his pieces towards the King's-side, and around the twenty-fifth 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. In his twenties he was an atrocious chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties. But he had great imagination; he could see more deeply into a situation than any other player in chess history. – Bobby Fischer Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep the openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middle game that the game was decided - even though his opponent didn't always know it - before he arrived at the ending. – Bobby Fischer Spassky is on this list principally because of his unique style. His game is marked by super-sharp openings. He sacrifices with complete abandon. In a game I played him several years ago he lost a pawn for no compensation. Then he played as if the pawn he had lost meant nothing. While trying to figure out what was going on in his head, I blundered and lost the game. Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he's mating or being mated. He has some weaknesses, but he makes it difficult for an opponent to take advantage of them. – Bobby Fischer Even after losing four games in a row to him I still consider his play unsound. He is always on the lookout for some spectacular sacrifice. He is not so much interested in who has the better game, or in the essential soundness of his own game, but in finding that one shot, that dramatic breakthrough that will give him the win. Tal appears to have no respect for his opponents, and frightens almost every player he opposes. – Bobby Fischer For a period of ten years - between 1946 and 1956 – Reshevsky was probably the best chessplayer in the world. I feel sure that had he played a match with Botvinnik during that time he would have won and been World Champion. His chess knowledge is probably less than that of any other leading chessplayer; many B players have greater opening knowledge, but he is like a machine calculating every variation and has to find every move over the board by a process of elimination. He can see variations in a shorter period of time than most players who ever lived. – Bobby Fischer In answering the question, "Which is the greater game, Chess or Checkers," I must, in all frankness, favor Chess. – Newell W. Banks (Blindfold Checker Champion of the World) The poorest chess player is more to be envied than the most favored servant of the Golden Calf; for the latter grovels all his life long in the mire of materialism; while the former dwells high aloft, in the bright realms of imagination and poetry. - Weiss Nature supplies the game of chess with its implements; science with its system; art with its aesthetic arrangement of its problems; and God endows it with its blessed power of making people happy. – Weiss The real lives of dazzlingly brilliant chess geniuses are sometimes hopelessly dull. – Reuben Fine First restrain, next blockade, and lastly destroy! – Aaron Nimzowitsch So what is chess strategy anyway? And what is the difference between strategy and tactics? The following skills are essential for success in chess: you have to be able exactly calculate variations, quickly find combinations, correctly estimate a position and make a plan of a game. The calculating and combinational abilities belong to tactics, whereas the skill of assessing the resulting positions and making of appropriate plans are the essence of strategy. – Aleksey Bartashinkov It is with books as with men - a very small number play a great part; the rest are lost in the multitude. – Voltaire Madness is the professional disease of genius. – Hans Binder Bishops for attack, knights for defense. – Source Unknown The wife of an addicted chessplayer is a lonely creature who must put up with her husband’s obsession with chess. The chessplayer’s widow sees her husband as a vague person who is more interested in a checkmate than his own mate. He is studying his board; she is bored of his studying. He is thinking of knight moves; she is thinking of the nightlife; he is looking for mate in one; she is looking for one to mate. – Bill Wall Now the strong chessplayer is gifted with an incredible memory. A game is analyzed in detail and played over and over; past chess games and brilliant moves and variations are never forgotten. The latest theory of the Scheveningen variation of the Sicilian Defense has been memorized to the smallest detail. Yet, when there are a few chores to do around the house or a few things to pick up at the store, the chessplayer has forgotten all of this and passes it off as “poor memory.” However, he can remember that brilliant chess game he won five years ago to a fellow chessplayer in the third round of some minor Swiss tournament. – Bill Wall The chessplayer’s widow probably suffers more if her husband has won. He brings home a small trophy and already spent his prize money by taking all his chess friends to a pizza house. The wife must listen with interest as he gives her a move-by-move description in detail with added explanations of how brilliant each move was, including all variations. The wife must follow her chess-playing husband from room to room, so as not to escape a single move of a particular game, or else suffer the consequences of him setting up the pieces all over again and starting over from move one. – Bill Wall The worst thing a wife can do is learn how to play the game herself. First, she will want to accompany her husband to chess tournaments. Then she will play the chess computer. Soon she will prove to be too much competition and may beat her husband in an off-hand game. That does it. It is time to give up chess, sell or give away his chess books, and take up golf. – Bill Wall And, lastly, we learn chess by the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs; the habit of hoping for a favourable chance, and that of preserving in the search of resources. The game is so full of events, there is such a variety of turns in it, the fortune of it is so subject to vicissitudes, and one so frequently, after contemplation, discovers the means of extricating one’s self from a supposed insurmountable difficulty, that one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last, in hopes of victory from our skill; or, at least, from the negligence of our adversary: and whoever considers, what in Chess he often sees instances of, that success is apt to produce presumption and its consequent inattention, by which more is afterwards lost than was gained by the preceding advantage, while misfortunes produce more care and attention, by which the loss may be recovered, will learn not to be too much discouraged by any present successes of his adversary, nor to despair of final good fortune upon every little check he receives in the pursuit of it. – Benjamin Franklin You ought not to endeavour to amuse and deceive your adversary by pretending to have made bad moves; and saying you have now lost the game, in order to make him secure and careless, and inattentive to your schemes; for this is fraud and deceit, not skill in the game of Chess. – Benjamin Franklin You must not, when you have gained a victory, use any triumphing or insulting expressions, nor show too much of the pleasure you feel; but endeavour to console your adversary, and make him less dissatisfied with himself by every kind and civil expression that may be used with truth; such as, you understand the game better than I, but you are a little inattentive, or, you play too fast; or, you had the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and that turned it in my favour. – Benjamin Franklin If you desire to exercise or show your judgment, do it in playing your own game, when you have an opportunity, not in criticizing or meddling with, or counseling the play of others. – Benjamin Franklin If the game is not to be played rigorously, according to the rules, then moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourself. – Benjamin Franklin Snatch not eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskillfulness or inattention; but point out to him kindly, that by such a move he places or leaves a Piece en prise unsupported; that by another, he will put his King into a dangerous situation, etc. By this general civility (so opposite to the unfairness before forbidden) you may happen indeed to lose the game; but you will win what is better: his esteem, his respect, and his affection, together with the silent approbation and the good will of the spectators. – Benjamin Franklin When a vanquished player is guilty of an untruth to cover his disgrace, as “I have not played in so long; his method of opening the game confused me; the men were of an unusual size,” etc, all such apologies, (to call them no worse) must lower him in a wise person’s eyes, both as a man and a Chessplayer; and who will not suspect that he who shelters himself under such untruths in trifling matters, is no very sturdy moralist in things of greater consequence, where his fame and honor are at stake? A man of proper pride would scorn to account for his being beaten by one of these excuses, even were it true; because they have all so much the appearance, at the moment, of being untrue. – Benjamin Franklin Remember, what chess has in common with art and science is its utter uselessness. – Larry Evans Winning isn't everything, but losing sucks! – Source Unknown The attack on the castled position is a special case of the mating attack. Of course it is also one of the most important, because castling occurs in a very large number of games. – Vladimir Vukovic The characterizing property of positions with opposite castling is the generous use of pawns to open lines and diagonals to the enemy king, because this doesn't affect the safety of your own king. The attacker always has the advantage of having his troops mobilized, usually with a lot of mobility. Apart from his main goal he can have other intensions. The defender is mainly concerned in preventing the enemy plans from working, looking for loopholes in them. This task requires more care and will-power than the task of the attacker. It can wear down the defender and lead to a loss of belief in the position. – Rudolf Spielmann The main principal of the attack on the castled king is to achieve a maximum of attacking potential with a minimum of commitment. – Vladimir Vukovic The most important principle by which one should be guided in the middlegame is the principle of harmonious action of the pieces. A free position with a loose arrangement of the pieces, which cannot be brought to harmonize with each other in the foreseeable future, is a bad position. In the full judgment of a position, the strength, the maneuvering capability and the harmonious interaction of the pieces must be considered. – Jose Raul Capablanca The pieces must work harmoniously. The position plays the main role; material is only of secondary importance. Space and time are additional characteristics of the position. – Jose Raul Capablanca The simultaneous analysis of various types of positions leads only to a confusion of ideas, while the thorough examination of only one type does not fail to awaken positional understanding. – Alexey Suetin Once you master the "basics", then every time you learn how to play a new position, etc. that helps, too. So at first in chess one must master the generalities - once you do that then every specific you learn is another feather in your cap. If you don't know the generalities, then learning lots of specifics doesn't help. – Dan Heisman Never murder a man who is committing suicide. – Woodrow Wilson The separation of Strategy and Tactics is like the separation between Space and Time. There really isn't a difference, but it sure makes it easier to talk about them. – Jason Varsoke A chess player is received with open arms around the world. He won't be lonely in any city, even if he doesn't know a soul. – Emanuel Lasker The qualities I most admire in a chess game are precision, beauty and fighting spirit. – Larry Evans I don't try for quick knockouts. I like to win a pawn, then 40 moves later win the game. – Barbre A game of chess played by men of equal strength, and played accurately, will end in a draw, and it is apt to be dull. – Emanuel Lasker A bad day at chess is better than any good day of chasing some silly little dimpled ball all over somebody's cow pasture. – White Ignorance is blitz. – Alfieri I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls -- but postal chess is one vice I don't have. – Mikhail Tal It's far more important not to do anything stupid than to create brilliant combinations. – Larry Evans A Chilean human rights lawyer arrested by the Pinochet regime was allowed to take three books with him to prison. He chose the Bible, Plato's Dialogues and the thickest chess book on his shelf. "I didn't know if I'd be in for a week or a lifetime, so I looked for things that would last.” – Krauthammer
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