Quotes & Sayings About Chess Players

I think that by and large chess players have been very kind. Like I said there have been a few incidents, but they certainly didn't serve to bring me down any. — Maurice Ashley

I have also known some of the world's finest brains and some of these, though passionately fond of chess, have been pretty poor players. I used to know one of the world's leading mathematicians and whenever we played chess I had to give him the odds of a Queen to make matters more equal, and even then I always won. — Harry Golombek

For us chess players the language of artist is something natural. — Vladimir Kramnik

A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. — Garry Kasparov

Bodies like this give sexual desire its meaning! It's for this that penises rise like drawbridges and vaginas become engorged with blood! It's for this that people throw snot-nosed kids into ravines, cross raging rivers, or ice-pick up the wrong side of frozen waterfalls! It's for this that politicians undo their flies in election season, porn magazines with their pages stuck together are found stacked in church basements, people chop off body parts and mail them to ex-lovers, risk hair on palms, stolen wallets, planes flying into buildings, and lice that hop like chess figurines on a board whose players are ever changing. — Barry Webster

Chess players do not care about the pawns. They sacrifice the least powerful so they can hold on to their power.Your leaders play chess with your lives,but what the world does not yet know is that someone else whispers the moves as they play... — Catherine Linka

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

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

All chess players know what a combination is. Whether one makes it oneself, or is its victim, or reads of it, it stands out from the rest of the game and stirs one's admiration. — Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

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

I'll always take Scrabble and chess if I'm going filming. But I do have the Scrabble dictionary, which can be infuriating for other players. — Saffron Burrows

It's the fault of the chess players themselves. I don't know what they used to be, but now they're not the most gentlemanly group. When it was a game played by the aristocrats it had more like you know dignity to it. When they used to have the clubs, like no women were allowed and everybody went in dressed in a suit, a tie, like gentlemen, you know. Now, kids come running in their sneakers. Even in the best chess club-and they got women in there. It's a social place and people are making noise, it's a madhouse. — Bobby Fischer

Lack of proper endgame technique allows many players to escape from lost positions, even without any spectacular play on their part. — Leonid Shamkovich

19.Rxc7N. There comes the novetly! [sic] Actually, the impression I had is that both players had more or less analyzed the rest of the game. — Romain Edouard

Young players calculate everything, a requirement of their relative inexperience. — Samuel Reshevsky

We want more women players to take up chess. There are few participants at the national level and hope it will grow. — Viswanathan Anand

There are tough players and nice guys, and I'm a tough player — Bobby Fischer

Human affairs are like a chess-game: only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players. Life is like an earthen pot: only when it is shattered, does it manifest its emptiness. — Seneca The Younger

Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight — Jose Raul Capablanca

I address these hopes to all young players. It seems to me that they often begin too early the strict life of a professional, without first completing their chess studies. Deficiencies in education and a lack of certain basic knowledge will tell sooner or later; they will bump their head on the ceiling and will no longer be able to climb up to the stars. — Sergei Shipov

Most chess players know, thanks to the study of master games, that two bishops are stronger than two knights or than bishop and knight, though very few know the reason for this advantage and how to turn it to account. — Richard Reti

Chess is the only game greater than its players. — Tim Rice

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. — Garry Kasparov

Far more people make a living as professional chess players today than ever before. Thanks partly to the availability of computer programs and online matches, there has been a mini-boom in chess interest among young people in many countries. — Kenneth Rogoff

A lot of these ideas are built under wrong presumptions which officials have that chess players are lazy bastards whose sole idea is to deceive (the) public and to make short draws and go home. It's not true. It's a lie. — Boris Gelfand

Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves. — Anne Bronte

The Soviet Union was an exception, but even there chess players were not rich. Only Fischer changed that. — Boris Spassky

Except for a handful, chess players don't have such illusions. The game has a severe analytic quality that makes self-deception difficult. Unlike the undiscovered poet who, despite the harsh criticism of his peers, lives on his fantasies for the day that he will be recognized as the next Dylan Thomas, even a young chess player can usually gauge his talent. When Josh was six, he played several games against a pudgy thirteen-year-old who was the top player on his high school team. He beat Josh every time, but a couple of the games were close, and afterwards the boy seemed gloomy about his performance. He explained that if he didn't make significant improvement during the next year, he would wind up as just another wood-pusher. Despite his celebrity in school, he seemed to know that he didn't have it. While — Fred Waitzkin

In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this. — Vladimir Kramnik

Deep practice, however, doesn't obey the same math. Spending more time is effective - but only if you're still in the sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities, attentively building and honing circuits. What's more, there seems to be a universal limit for how much deep practice human beings can do in a day. Ericsson's research shows that most world-class experts - including pianists, chess players, novelists, and athletes - practice between three and five hours a day, no matter what skill they pursue. — Daniel Coyle

Nowadays there is more dynamism in chess, modern players like to take the initiative. Usually they are poor defenders though. — Boris Spassky

As with Steinitz, Fischer's genius has often been concealed by controversies away from the board. Like Lasker, Fischer has raised chess to new financial heights despite frequent retreats from serious play. And, like Capablanca, Fischer is recognized by millions of non-players and has won the game many new enthusiasts. — Andrew Soltis

Geniuses of certain kinds - mathematicians, chess players, computer programmers - seem, if not mad, at least lacking in the social skills most easily identified with sanity. — James Gleick

Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation. — Boris Spassky

The chemists who uphold dualism are far from being agreed among themselves; nevertheless, all of them in maintaining their opinion, rely upon the phenomena of chemical reactions. For a long time the uncertainty of this method has been pointed out: it has been shown repeatedly, that the atoms put into movement during a reaction take at that time a new arrangement, and that it is impossible to deduce the old arrangement from the new one. It is as if, in the middle of a game of chess, after the disarrangement of all the pieces, one of the players should wish, from the inspection of the new place occupied by each piece, to determine that which it originally occupied. — Auguste Laurent

The literary game is the abyss of human society itself: interactive, playful and tragic. We can't live alone. For me, Robinson [Crusoe] is either a false myth or else he represents the denial of human society. We can't play by ourselves. In literature, it's even more complicated, because one has to play with an indeterminate number of players simultaneously and every game is different. The other player can abandon your game at any time ... to go play chess. — Dumitru Tepeneag

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 foresee from the opening — Mikhail Tal

Emotional instability can be one of the factors giving rise to a failure by chess players in important duels. Under the influence of surging emotions (and not necessarily negative ones) we sometimes lose concentration and stop objectively evaluating the events that are taking place on the board. — Mark Dvoretsky

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

Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels. — Jorge Luis Borges

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 wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings. — Bobby Fischer

It's a very special generation, because during our careers the computer entered chess. So we know how to play without computers, which is also important. We can analyse without computers. I am not saying that younger players cannot do this, but we are more in the habit of doing this. That's important to improve your chess understanding. — Vassily Ivanchuk

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

Bobby Fischer was hugely important for the American chess community because it put chess on the map - he made it possible for other chess players to make a living. — Liz Garbus

Computers have proved to be formidable chess players. In fact, they've beaten our top human chess champions. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win. — Robert Grudin

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

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. — Viswanathan Anand

Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his ooponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending. — Bobby Fischer

The only thing Chess players have in common is Chess. — Lodewijk Prins

If you have a strong opponent, a competition is stimulating. I am generally most open to ideas when I have had a bad result. In chess, too, players specialise. This specialty then becomes an entry barrier. — Viswanathan Anand

Bobby Fischer's current state of mind is indeed a tragedy. One of the worlds greatest Chess players - the pride and sorrow of American Chess — Frank Brady

First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game — Siegbert Tarrasch

All Chess players should have a hobby — Savielly Tartakower

In order to become a grandmaster class player whose understanding of chess is superior to the thousands of ordinary players, you have to develop within yourself a large number of qualities, the qualities of an artistic creator, a calculating practitioner, a cold calm competitor. — Alexander Kotov

Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have a unique ability of taking in a lot of information and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are the key attributes. — Viswanathan Anand

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

One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion. — Anatol Rapoport

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. — G.K. Chesterton

India and China are improving by leaps and bounds and it will be their chess players who will lead the revolution of the XXI century. — Judit Polgar

It's easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common. — Magnus Carlsen

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. — Anatoly Karpov

The huge egos of great chess players are legendary. Psychologists have been amazed by their vanity, have studied it, and anecdotes concerning it are abundant. But never before has there been such a prima donna as Bobby. Already he has managed to alienate and offend almost everybody in the chess world. That includes officials, patrons, writers, almost everybody and anybody who might be in a position to help him in his career. — Israel Albert Horowitz

I didn't know so well chess theory, the theory of chess openings. And so, of course I knew the theory, but not on the level of the best players, so this was my ... this was always my weakness. — Anatoly Karpov

When top-level chess players look at a board, they see words, not letters. Instead of seeing twenty-five pieces, they may see just five or six groups of pieces. That's why it's easy for them to remember where all the pieces are. — Geoff Colvin

When humans team up with computers to play chess, the humans who do best are not necessarily the strongest players. They're the ones who are modest and who know when to listen to the computer. Often, what the human adds is knowledge of when the computer needs to look more deeply. — Tyler Cowen

G. K. Chesterton says chess players go crazy, not poets. I think he is right. — Donald Miller

When you're good at something, you should continue to do it. Too many players have stopped at a relatively young age ... — Jan Timman

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

Women, by their nature, are not exceptional chess players: they are not great fighters. — Garry Kasparov

Anyone who wishes to learn how to play chess well must make himself or herself thoroughly conversant with the play in positions where the players have castled on opposite sides. — Alexander Kotov

Not infrequently ... the theoretical is a synonym of the stereotyped. For the 'theoretical' in chess is nothing more than that which can be found in the textbooks and to which players try to conform because they cannot think up anything better or equal, anything original. — Mikhail Chigorin

And so without our primordial attachments to others, what would we be?
Evidently, we would be the players of a game, one that resembled a giant chess match, with our fellow human beings as the rooks, the knights, and the pawns. For this is the essence of sociopathic behavior, and desire. — Martha Stout

In Washington Square, one could still feel the characters of Henry James and the presence of the author himself. Entering the perimeters of the white arch, one was greeted by the sounds of bongos and acoustic guitars, protest singers, political arguments, activists leafleting, older chess players challenged by the young. This open atmosphere was something I had not experienced, simple freedom that did not seem to be oppressive to anyone. — Patti Smith Just Kids

Chess players are madmen of a certain quality, the way the artist is supposed to be, and isn't, in general. — Marcel Duchamp

Chess has given me a lot more than I could ask for. I have been able to feel special, travel the world and do what I truly enjoy. Moreover, chess players love being their own boss and hate having to wake up early! — Viswanathan Anand

He is the so-called father of the modern school of chess; before him, the King was considered a weak piece and players set out to attack the King directly. Steinitz claimed that the King was well able to take care of itself, and ought not to be attacked until one had some other positional advantage. He understood more about the use of squares than Morphy and contributed a great deal more to chess theory. — Bobby Fischer

In our small chess community in Marylebone it would be mock modesty on my part to deny that I have built up for myself a considerable name without ever actually having won a single game. Even the best players are sometimes beaten, and that is precisely what happens to me. — Stephen Potter

Chess players, people who travel all over the world, should be trusted or else not sent anywhere at all. Why are these four people (Antoshion 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 ... — Viktor Korchnoi

Professional players work almost every day, for hours on end, and the emphasis is on the word 'work.' It can be with a partner or it can be alone, but professional chess is always a pursuit of something new and surprising. — Viswanathan Anand

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

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

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. — Garry Kasparov

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