Botvinnik Quotes & Sayings

If Tal sacrifices a piece, take it. If Petrosian sacrifices a piece, don't take it. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

Like Dvoretsky, I think that (all 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. — Garry Kasparov

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

In short, we can see Karpov as an exploiter of other people's ideas. His ability to use these ideas is not at issue, but he himself is about as fertile as a woman who has been sterilized is. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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 in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Botvinnik) — Jose Raul Capablanca

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 continuous development of chess mastery. — Garry Kasparov

Chess cannot be taught. Chess can only be learned. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Tal accepted absolutely all the world champion's conditions with a smile, taking away a very important psychological trump card from him - the harsh, prickly relations with his opponent that were characteristic of all Botvinnik's matches. — Gennadi Sosonko

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Botvinnik was a killer in chess. — Yuri Averbakh

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Titled players appeared to be trotting out game after game in which the same old hoary opening sequences, memorized out to fifteen, twenty, or even more moves, were repeated endlessly. True novelties were becoming scarcer, and sometimes these 'opening' novelties didn't appear until well into the middlegame. (A master-level friend once proudly showed me a novelty he'd discovered at move twenty-seven of a very well-trodden chess opening, and it's said that even as far back as the 1950's Mikhail Botvinnik had some openings memorised past the thirtieth move). — Steve Lopez

If Tal would learn to program himself properly, then it would become quite impossible to play against him. — Mikhail 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

Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic. — Mikhail Botvinnik

I only think well when my mind is calm. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

Don't worry kids, you'll find work. After all, my machine will need strong chess player-programmers. You will be the first. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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. — Garry Kasparov

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

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

Chess is the art of analysis. — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

The boy (then a 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov)doesn't have a clue about Chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession — Mikhail Botvinnik

A knight ending is really a pawn ending. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Chess is a part of culture and if a culture is declining then Chess too will decline — Mikhail Botvinnik

Botvinnik's right! When he says such things, then he's right. Usually, I prefer not to study chess but to play it. For me chess is more an art than a science. It's been said that Alekhine and I played similar chess, except that he studied more. Yes, perhaps, but I have to say that he played, too. — Mikhail Tal

Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists — Mikhail Botvinnik

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

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. — Garry Kasparov

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

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

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

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