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Miscellaneous

It is cool to play chess! – Will Smith

I've wasted a Black. – Gerald Abrahams (after drawing a game with the Black pieces)

It is impossible to keep one's skill in a showcase, like a jewel. – Adolf Anderssen (on the effects of not playing for a period of time)

You can't play chess if you're groggy from pills. – Anatoly Karpov

When Spassky played the Tarrasch successfully against Petrosian, I shook my head and understood nothing, except that Petrosian was losing his title. – Bent Larsen

The initial position is decisive Zugzwang. – Jon Speelman

I have to face the opening preparation of the whole family. – Viktor Korchnoi (on having to face Kramnik and his training partner Dolmatov in successive rounds of a tournament)

All forced opening lines favor White! – Lev Polugaevsky

Trying to win with Black always requires a certain degree of risk. – Larry Evans

Opening theory is a strange, speckled animal. – Bent Larsen

Show me three lines of the opening theory moves and I will prove to you that two of them are incorrect. – Emanuel Lasker

The sad truth seems to be that, so far as the Vienna is concerned, the era of heroes and monsters has given way to rational defense. – Tim Harding

Were it not for the monotony which has arisen from many players clinging so persistently to certain book variations of dull and safe openings, the necessity for any variations would be less urgent. – Henry Bird

Nothing excites jaded grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty. – Dominic Lawson

An opening novelty is to the chess Grandmaster what a slick draw is to the gunfighter. You gotta have one or you're gonna die! – Yasser Seirawan

It is astonishing how much hot water a master can wade into in the first dozen moves, despite a century of opening study. – William Napier

Nowadays, when my opening repertoire has long been cast in iron, I don't get that excited about the big novelties that get one or two exclamation marks. Because, as we all know, in the next issue there will be an improvement for the other side that proves that although the idea was interesting, it didn't win on the spot. But what I enjoy more than anything else is sitting with my chessboard and pieces, with a good mug of coffee and playing through top class games, usually annotated by one of the players. – Carsten Hansen

We could willingly banish from the Chess state that servile reproduction of others’ thoughts and learning which marks the hackneyed player, and in its stead bring back again something like invention and original ability. Chess players of the present day study too much when away from, too little when at, the board. If players would but come to the game in the spirit rather than with the exact words of Lewis, they would in a short space of time do much more for the general cause of Chess and for their own individual skill than they will ever do under the present vicious system. Amongst the brute creation, a donkey obeying nature is a most useful and valuable animal, but if dressed in a lion’s skin it becomes ridiculous, for, alas!, it cannot get rid of either its voice or its ears. We unhesitatingly assert that those players who aim at being most scientific, and place their chief reliance on a knowledge of openings, are not in the long run the most successful. Cochrane was more learned than Deschapelles, McDonnell than Labourdonnais, Lowenthal than Harrwitz; yet native wit triumphed. In the first of these instances the result is the more remarkable, because no more original player than Cochrane ever lived. – The Chess World, 1865

A new move? In these days one can hardly make such a claim, for, sooner or later, some person will come forward and prove black on white that he used this move decades ago in some class C tournament or perchance in a coffeehouse game and hence demand parental recognition. But many very promising moves are well forgotten. – Alexander Alekhine

Some openings walk the line between leading to easy equality, and wiping the opponent off the board. They have an element of risk. A lot of the gambits fall into this category. If you know how to meet them, then you get to equalize easily. If not, bend over baby, here comes the A-train. – Kelly Atkins

There is not a single true chessplayer in the world whose heart does not beat faster at the mere sound of such long beloved and familiar words as ‘gambit games’. – David Bronstein

But whatever the transient fashion in openings, the Spanish Game itself is always in fashion. Because of all the ways known in chess theory of crossing the equator, this one is the best. – David Bronstein

It was from apprehension of this move that Ruy Lopez, nearly three hundred years ago, declared himself in favor of 2...d6, instead of 2...Nc6, for the defense of the King’s pawn; and there is an impression prevalent among some of our best players at this time that the Spaniard was right, and that the defending player cannot surely trust to 2...Nc6 for the second move. The question arises, "Can it be safely defended at all?" and to this there is no satisfactory answer. We believe it cannot, and that, by playing 1...e5, the second player subjects himself to embarrassment from the very outset of the game. – Howard Staunton (on meeting 1.e4)

When you play the Ruy Lopez, it's like milking a cow. – David Bronstein

In the Ruy Lopez, the play is rich enough that the better player almost always wins. – Dan Heisman

The more one knows about the Ruy Lopez, the more one knows about chess. – Charles Warburton

This move (1.b4), which has so bizarre an aspect, occupies a place of honor amongst the `freak' openings. Later, at the New York Tournament of 1924, I termed this the `Orangutan' Opening, not only because I employed it there against Maroczy -- after a previous consultation with a young orangutan (during a visit by all the masters to the New York Zoo on the eve of the game in question) but also since the climbing movement of the pawn to b4 and then b5 is reminiscent of that inventive animal. The name has stuck. – Saviely Tartakower

Chess is not dominos. – Garry Kasparov (referring to the Grob)

In general, it can be established that there are two defenses against 1.e4, which make it absolutely impossible for the first player to take any initiative, and which give Black such an even game, without any difficulties at all, that it has now become useless in practice, since these defenses are generally known. They are the Caro-Kann Defense and the variation of the French Game: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4. – Richard Reti

Always deploy so that the right oblique may be readily established in case the objective plane remains open or becomes permanently located on the center or on the king's wing, or that the crochet aligned may readily be established if the objective plane becomes permanently located otherwise than at the extremity of the strategic front. – Franklin Young

I think now is the time to acquaint the reader with the mysteries of the Black d-pawn in the King's Indian. Even though it is situated on an open file and therefore always exposed to attack, it is not a very easy nut to crack. The simplest method for White is apparently to retreat the Knight from d4, but d4 is precisely where the Knight needs to be: its jobs are to supervise b5, c6, e6, and f5 and to buffer the influence of the Bg7. Only after White has taken steps against possible Black attacks (...a3, ...Be6, ...f5) can his Knight leave the center, but during that time Black can regroup to cause worries elsewhere. So the weakness of the d-pawn proves to be imaginary. Contemporary methods of play in the opening recognize the illusory weakness of such pawns. But it was exactly this 'eternal' weakness of the Pd6 that led to the King's Indian being regarded as dubious. – David Bronstein

The King’s Indian is a greater risk for black than the King’s Gambit for white. – David Bronstein

The strategic conceptions after 1.d4 are richer. – Garry Kasparov

For me 1.e4 is more natural. It is more aggressive, and requires more work. It’s more concrete, double-edged, and more dangerous for black. Opening choice is a matter of nature. The further you go, the closer you get to your true chess style. I’m not saying that I will always play 1.e4, however, as 1.d4 is also a good move. My match with Kramnik proved it! – Garry Kasparov

It is a well-known fact that during a practical game, players do not check variations entirely but just trust each other. – David Bronstein

Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic of the chess player. – Siegbert Tarrasch

The middlegame, I repeat, is chess itself; chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defenses, sacrifices, etc. – Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

The middle game, where the struggle is really fought, will take a variable number of moves, and will be named so until the certainty of mate for one of the two players is ninety percent. – Madame Flash

The technician, whose vocabulary has been doubled by Dr. Euwe, will find that White could have saved his soul by a desperado combination. Had this failure anything to do with the fact that Dr. Euwe's terminology was not yet existent at that time? – Fred Reinfeld

Between GMs we have this saying: there are only two styles: the losing or the winning one. – Vladimir Kramnik

To be capable of conducting an endgame to the distant goal with clarity, firmness, and complete familiarity with all its tricks and traps is the sign of the first-class master. – Jacques Mieses

Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame. – Siegbert Tarrasch

To play with correctness and skill the ends of games, is an important but a very rare accomplishment, expect among the magnates of the game. – Howard Staunton

The great Latvian world champion Mikhail Tal once told of his bemusement when his opponent in a world title match, Mikhail Botvinnik, after very little thought exchanged a pair of rooks on an open file, then moved his second rook away from the same file. After the game Tal confessed his surprise at the decision. 'This type of position,' Botvinnik explained to him, 'one must not play with two pairs of rooks, nor with no rooks at all, but only with one pair of rooks.' Tal went home and spent many hours analyzing the various endgames with two rooks, one rook and no rooks each, finally concluding that Botvinnik's position could be saved only in the case of the single rook. His analyses, in fact, taught him so much about such endgames that he was able, with confidence, to say from that moment on that 'such positions' should be played with just one rook. Neither Botvinnik nor Tal, however, would have been able to explain precisely what they meant by 'such positions'. – Dan Heisman

Well, hmmm, endgames, yes, they are important, Yaaaaawwwwnnnnn! – Norbert Friedrich

The eighth square at last! Oh how glad I am to get here. And what is this on my head? – Alice (in Through The Looking Glass – Carroll)

Ahoy! Check! Ahoy! – The White Knight (in "Through the Looking Glass")

In chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated. – Emanuel Lasker

Heaven knows, we all make mistakes. That's life - and chess. – Woody Allen

What would chess be without silly mistakes? – Kurt Richter

The existence of chess can only be justified by the necessity of making errors. – Saviely Tartakower.

It was worse than a mistake - it was a blunder. – DePeaza

Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind. – Sherlock Holmes (by A. Conan Doyle)

Even God cannot win a drawn position against a supergrandmaster. – Source Unknown

Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game, turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one knows in advance which half. – Jan Timman

Thirty years ago (this was written in 1942), Teichmann said that chess is 99% tactics. And despite the enormous strides of chess theory since then, his percentage can only be reduced a few points. – Reuben Fine

Nowadays chessplayers are sometimes caught at a bookstall during their game, consulting reference books. They are punished and their plea that they are trying to bring chess to a higher level is not accepted. For many people, speculation and risk are just the things that give chess its attraction. – Hans Ree

Chess is an egotistical game, and all its protagonists hold conceits of some kind or other, else there would be no point in playing. – Charles W. Warburton

I never play chess for fun. It is a game that brings out the killer instinct and is a terribly aggressive ego trip. When you win, you are immensely elated; when you lose, you are crushed. – James T. Sherwin

"Feyd has beaten the slavemaster at Cheops. Did you hear that?"
"Yes, Sire."
"I wish you to take three men and go to the slavemaster," the Baron said. "Garrote the slavemaster. Bring his body to me when you've finished, that I may see it was done properly. We cannot have such inept chess players in our employ." – Frank Herbert (Dune)

We're supposed to learn from our defeats, and, ideally, we should try. But being repeatedly bludgeoned into submission is likely to leave even the tough-minded insensate. We all need some winning once in awhile. – Bruce Pandolfini

Losing at chess in particular has the power to leave us feeling outwitted and even humiliated. – Bruce Pandolfini

The most disheartening issue was our failure to play as well as we feel we should. – Gene Thompson

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. – Tigran Petrosian

Every player has experienced the feeling of elation, that in reaching the time control, the last move was a mistake. I dare say more mistakes have been made on the last move of time control then any other. – Yasser Seirawan

The experienced traveler arrives on time, but not too early. And so I thought that an experienced chessplayer has to make forty moves before the time control, and not nervously one extra to be quite sure. – Piet van der Weide (on losing a game due to mistakenly making only 39 moves before the time control)

Time trouble does terrible things to all of us, and when your flag is hanging you get the chance to ruin all of your previous work. Of course, if both players are in zeitnot things can get really entertaining. – Mig Greengard

His best move, if sudden extinction, is preferable to lingering torture. – Howard Staunton

Forced, therefore correct. – Saviely Tartakower

If you resign, then thank you for the game. – Source Unknown (this was an "if" move in a CC game)

When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box. – Italian Proverb

No sport makes me sweat as much as chess. – Josh Waitzkin

Everyone who pays his membership fees to his club should be awarded the master's title. Although I shall personally consider everybody to be a master unless he proves me the opposite. – Vasily Panov

Reinfeld had a way of adding drama to the analysis of a chess game, and he could truly make the personalities of the chess masters come alive. – Bruce Pandolfini

I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved. – Soren Kierkegaard

I thought I was the only one who saw that The Human Side of Chess was written with venom. But then, Reinfeld hated impartially! He hated Morphy, Alekhine, and Capablanca most of all. He hated all chess players - except those who bought his books. Those he despised! – These words were written by Irving Chernev, in a letter to Edward Winter

The English chess writer Edward Winter has this in common with God, that his existence can only be deduced from his works. – Hans Ree

The problem, I think, rests with Mr. Winter's love of any chess fact (and I do stress FACT! He looks at anything not proven and fully documented with disdain). This high-priest of correctness (whom no known chess player has ever seen) would undoubtedly groan in ecstasy if he found out what Alekhine used to feed his cat (of course, he would take weeks to research this "Alekhine's cat" issue before publishing his findings. I wonder what his day job is?). This makes him a chess lover in the highest sense of the word and, as a result, everything proven is (in his mind) sanctified and worthwhile. – Jeremy Silman

When you absolutely don't know what to do anymore, it is time to panic. – John van der Wiel

Where are their new objectives? If each player is capable of quick development, castling, and of not blundering any pieces away, what is there to separate the two sides? – Michael Stean

Non-titled players can often come up with new moves, but they aren't able to correctly evaluate the positional results. – Source Unknown

The sight of an Olympiad never fails to excite me. All those people from all those countries - some very rich, some very poor, some Communist, some capitalist - but all sharing a common enthusiasm for chess. At first sight it seems to offer a perfect example of how the people of the world can compete with each other in amity and peace. Then all the bickering starts. – Garry Kasparov

It is the curse of the chess problem to be clever without being entertaining. – John Beasley

The problems that arise in the 70-90 positions of the average chess game are, moreover, new. Contexts are familiar, themes repeat, but game positions never do. This makes chess good grist for the problem-solving mill. – Roger Langen

Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity. – Vladimir Nabokov

A chess problem is an exercise in pure mathematics. – G. H. Hardy

If a garden is nature perfected, then a study might be described as a game of chess perfected. – Source Unknown

Chess problems are full of paradoxes and original ideas. – Garry Kasparov

Chess composition; the most beautiful and mysterious aspect of the art of chess. – Garry Kasparov

I have lately come to think that problem composition is peculiarly a mental work, and that employment of board and men is in many ways a nuisance. It cramps the imaginative faculties. Certainly, the three-movers I have composed since I lost my sight are infinitely superior, as a whole, to those composed before. – A. F. Mackenzie

Paintings are generally accepted as a valid art form, and rightly so. There is every reason why chess composition should be treated in the same way. Just as paintings exhibit the skill and genius of their artists, so can chess positions show the brilliance, imagination and depth of thought of their composers. – Jonathan Levitt

A wood-pusher overlooks the ranks. – Russian Proverb

There are many moves, but only one mate. – Soviet Proverb

An eye for the microscope betokens the master. – George Marco

Now I looked at the board in dismay. How was I going to win? Where could I force an entry? – Alexander Kotov

He was a pitiful sight to behold. Over and over he calculated and recalculated the variations, and couldn't understand how I could save my self. Of course he couldn’t - he was looking for something that wasn't there. – Anatoly Karpov (on Polugaevsky)

A grandmaster is a scholar in the field of chess and this academic status carries with it certain responsibilities. In order to gain this title, one has to follow an individual course of study and master all the knowledge developed by mankind in this field. In all fields of knowledge, the process of education has been stabilized. There are primary and secondary schools, institutes of higher education and then post graduate research centers with courses leading to higher degrees. As for going any higher than that, there is no help to be had from the specialists at all. Nor is that all. There is not even a recognized textbook, which would give some guide as to how to go about this very difficult work of self-improvement. – Alexander Kotov

If a ruler does not understand chess, how can he rule over a kingdom? – King Khusros II

Man moves his pieces around the board, taking them off one by one to put them in the box. The almighty lord moves men around, picking them off in due time to drop them into the grave. Who then moves god around, and may take him off the board in time? – Al-Masudi

When he hunted, the Prince was relentless. He neither ate nor slept. It was death chess, and he was international grandmaster. – William Goldman

Apparently, amateurs think of themselves as intellectual boxers, walking towards each other with swinging fists (sans footwork) and (if they are lucky) iron jaws; blocking punches never seems to occur to them. – Jeremy Silman

Therefore then Reynaud took the chessboard and smote Berthelot upon his head so hard that he cloved him to the teeth. And thus Berthelot fell down dead to the ground afore him. – Report of a medieval chess game

And Charlot took the chess-board and said thus: 'Ha, lecherous bastard, must you talk so much about it?' And raises the chess-board and gave him such a great blow with it that he dashed out all his brains and forced his two eyes out of his head, and he fell dead in the middle of the place. – Report of how the son of Charlemagne murdered an opponent who celebrated too much, his victory over him in chess.

This remarkable 'coup', by means of which the king is spirited away to safety while the rook magically appears on the scene, is probably the most significant contribution to civilization since the invention of the wheel. – Irving Chernev on castling)

You may knock your opponent down with the chessboard, but that does not prove that you are the better player. – Source Unknown

In my neighborhood in central Vancouver there are a lot of recent immigrants from eastern Europe who can frequently be seen engaged in public chess matches. The inspiration for Chess House came directly from viewing the precise dance of the pieces across the grid of these boards. It fascinated me that neither the past nor the future moves would leave any physical trace despite the intensity of forethought and reflection of the respective players. In essence, their mental maps of the game were not being reified. Thus, there was no physical evidence of the essential underlying strategies as they developed - what might be referred to as the structural progression of the game. It was the search for this missing quantity, this intangible yet integral aspect of the game, which I found highly compelling. How could one reveal the hidden structure? – Rodney Cottrell (architect of Chess House)

Everything is in a state of flux, and this includes the world of chess. – Mikhail Botvinnik

This is the United States Championship, not tiddlywinks. – Max Zavanelli (ICCF-US Secretary, in a letter to 13th USCCC entrants)

The captain was a good chess player, and the games with him were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting that they were foolish. – Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

How can I respect a man who doesn't play chess? – Kelly Atkins

Checkers is for tramps. – Paul Morphy

Chess is what you see, Checkers is what you know. There is enough in either game to last a man a lifetime. – Harry Nelson Pillsbury

Chess is like the ocean; draughts is like a deep well. – Marion Tinsley

Draughts is a less attractive game, infinitely less, but it is more scientific. You see, a step at draughts is irreparable. At chess, however, you can get back, change the disposition of your men, and possibly win. – Joseph Henry Blackburne

If it is so difficult to reconstruct the history of chess in India after 600, by which time it had already begun its journey to the West, it must seem quite impossible to reach any conclusions about the game's actual invention, before 600. – Richard Eales

MORON OF THE YEAR. An early Candidate is Andy Soltis who wasted almost 1½ pages in Chess Life to advocate that a stalemate should not be the same as a draw. Such stupidity is not even worth commenting upon, except to state that his ‘reasons’ for it are ASININE. – James Schroeder

No chess player sleeps well. – H. G. Wells

The joy of great inventions is in the remote past. Now, thousands of tactical ideas are recorded in `the black list’ of theory. All is known - that is, almost all. Naturally every chess player improvises over the board in accordance with his talent and imagination. But that which is already known, must be known! – Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Gromov, the outstanding Soviet pilot, wrote that if one wants to become a good pilot one must learn the art of self-control. These words may apply equally to chess and to every chessplayer. – V. B. Malkin

Chess is played with the mind and not with the hands! – Renaud and Kahn

A brain without sugar is not a brain. – Alexander Alekhine

I am always happy to buy my opponent a steak dinner right before we play! – Walter Browne

Whiskey stimulates the imagination - but eating a big meal before the game is equivalent to giving knight odds. – Henry Blackburne

It's bad to have a wrong theory that fails, but it's worse to have a wrong theory that works. – Bruce Pandolfini

Let sleeping dogmas lie. – Bruce Moon

It takes two to tango! – Garry Kasparov (on his famous game with Topalov in 1999)

For a game, which is a monument to skill, chess has its moments which, for lack of a better word, can only be described as luck. – Larry Evans

My favorite piece is the one that wins. – Source Unknown

The Achilles' heel of a chess position. – Source Unknown (on f7)

There were good moves and there were bad moves, but the most essential was missing - the player who put all the good moves into one plan. – David Bronstein (on the 23rd game of his '51 World Championship match)

That's what this match is all about, pawns - isolated or hanging. They might just as well play without pieces. – Eduard Gufeld (on the '74 Karpov-Korchnoi match)

Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two first-category players knocked pieces off the board as they were exchanged, so that the pieces fell onto the floor. It was as if they were playing skittles and not chess! – Alexander Kotov

A discussion between the top management of the firm Audi and grandmasters Darga, Schmid and Pfleger dealt with the similarities and differences between chess-oriented thinking and the thinking processes required in business, and in particular whether one can benefit from the other. The question arose as to how a chess master actually discovers his moves. Dr. Pfleger was of the opinion that in the last analysis nobody fully knows the reasoning by which he arrives at a certain move. Schmid disagreed emphatically, stating that he knew very well why he played his moves! – Pfleger and Treppner

Don't play with odd color or odd size equipment. Bobby Fischer would not, nor do I. When you do not play with correct boards and men, it takes either an extra conscience or a sub-conscience thought. When you play with brown or rosewood men, or blue, black or brown boards, your mind has to make a transition that you may not even be aware of. Fischer, myself and most other masters play with pieces that are ebony or black for the black pieces, and white or a light cream for the white pieces. Boards must be a green and buff or oyster. – Ken Smith

According to Moslem Law it is an Abomination to play at Chess. The prophet has declared all the Entertainments of a Moslem to be vain, except three, viz.: the breaking-in of his horse; the drawing of his bow; and the playing or amusing himself with his wives. Several of the learned, however, deem the game of Chess to be allowed, as having a tendency to quicken the understanding. – The Hectaya

She hung up and I set out the chessboard. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armor, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency. – Raymond Chandler

It was night. I went home and put my old house clothes on and set the chessmen out and mixed a drink and played over another Capablanca. It went fifty-nine moves. Beautiful, cold, remorseless chess, almost creepy in its silent implacability. – Raymond Chandler (The High Window)

I played chess with him and would have beaten him sometimes; only he always took back his last move, and ran the game out differently. – Mark Twain (from Life on Mississippi)

Thus the devil played at chess with me, and yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me, taking advantage of my honest endeavours. – Sir Thomas Browne

All we have gained then by our unbelief is a life of doubt diversified by faith, for one of faith diversified by doubt: we called the chess-board white, we call it black. – Robert Browning

He did most of the creative development of it (the Najdorf Sicilian), but he was anticipated by various Czechoslovak masters, particularly Karel Opocensky. That is not unusual in chess, where the flowering of an idea often outweighs its origin. – Robert Byrne (on Najdorf)

Botvinnik is working hard at trying to make a computer play chess as well as a human being, so let me teach human beings to analyze with the accuracy of a machine. – Alexander Kotov

Thank you for a very enjoyable game. – HAL 9000 (from 2001: A Space Odyssey)

Major successes do not happen without a major expenditure of nervous energy! – Alexander Beliavsky

My name is Rustam Kamsky. You annoyed my son. Prepare to die. – Rustam Kamsky

Once a King, always a King. Once a Queen, always a Queen, but once a Knight is enough. – Source Unknown

It is bad form for spectators to remove the pieces from the board without the consent of the players. – Henry Bird

Bordeaux calls to mind a distinguished figure in a frock coat. He enters his moderate enthusiasms in a leather pocketbook, observing the progress of beauty across his palate like moves in a game of chess. – Frank J Prial

Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess. – Felix Frankfurter

I don't always follow my own system to avoid errors. – John C. Knudsen (explaining a bad move to a strong opponent)

When chess masters err, ordinary wood pushers tend to derive a measure of satisfaction, if not actual glee. – Al Horowitz

All chess masters can play one game blindfolded. – George Koltanowski

Combinative vision manifests itself at an early age, and children are quick to notice and execute combinations, which chance to turn up. Preparing combinations, however, is more difficult for them. – Vladimir Zak

For in the perfect chess combination, as in a first rate short story, the whole plot and counter-plot should lead up to a striking finale, the interest not being allayed until the very last moment. – William Winter

A combination is a rearrangement of the connection of pieces of both sides, which forces a coordinated connection of contacts, which is advantageous to one side. – Yuri Averbakh

Let the opponent have the pawn center, and I will attack him. – Siegbert Tarrasch

The creative side of the game does not matter; the point is the King. – Paul Keres

Second only to chess, it is the best game I know. Variations are infinite; there is always something new to learn. But, as with chess too, participation is possible at quite different levels. – Michael Foot (on politics)

Arabian writings of the 10th century AD not only praised the beauty of chess, the authors of the period also recommended chess as an educational aid in the development of logical thinking. They also held the opinion that chess could lead to an insight into things to come, could enhance friendships, and also protect against loneliness. The Arabs became enthusiastic players and all classes of society were enchanted by the game. – Michael Gelb

Strange priests are they who never straightly walk,
But all aslant through sideways passage stalk,
Who never seek their goals in forward lines,
But move askew as fraught with sly designs. – Willard Fiske

Ours is no bloody battle
With woe and horror fraught
Our joust is of a gentler kind
A measuring of Mind with Mind
A tournament of thought. – Willard Fiske

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays. – Omar Khayyam

Each game of chess means there's one less
Variation left to be played;
Each day got through means one or two less
Mistakes remain to be made. – Sir Tim Rice

But the enemy has the move, and he is about to open his full game. And pawns are as likely to see as much of it as any. Sharpen your blade! – J. R. R. Tolkien

Have I ever mentioned you play an irritating game of chess, Mr. Spock? – Captain Kirk (after Spock had announced a forced mate)

It’s hard to combine with the lone king. – Jack Winters

I don't know what I am going to play, so how can she know what I am going to play! – Arthur Bisguier

Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game. – Godrey H. Hardy

Oh yeah. She's very nice, very tasty… Yes. They have very beautiful girls here in India. Very nice, indeed. – Nigel Short (on meeting Miss World, Priyanka Chopra)

The advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation. – Norbert Wiener

"Like us as Black", beg the chess pieces, "and you will anyway like us as White." – Isaac Boleslavsky

I have white; I made no mistake, so I should have some advantage. – Max Euwe

It is no time to be playing chess when the house is on fire. – Italian Proverb

You can't criticize a record. You either admire it or beat it. – Andrι Chιron

It is not by accident that the buildings of the most splendid chess games are erected either on the neglected ground of equal positions, or on the unsteady foundation of mutual mistakes. – Igor Zaitsev

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