Quotes & Sayings About Gambit

Anatoly Karpov, his by-the-book opponent, was too conservative to pressure Kasparov early in the game, so Kasparov put the pressure on himself with a Queen's Gambit - and won. — Christopher McDougall

A gambit never becomes sheer routine as long as you fear you may lose the king and pawn ending! — Bent Larsen

Launching a nice little war to divert national attention was a gambit no less appealing to nineteenth-century politicians than it is to their present-day counterparts. — Jon Krakauer

PLEASE BELIEVE that I am falling apart. I am not speaking metaphorically; nor is this the opening gambit of some melodramatic, riddling, grubby appeal for pity. I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug - that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of acceleration. I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust. — Salman Rushdie

After crippling the big red retard tonight, over a short period of time I have run the gambit of the who's who in the World Wrestling Federation! Crippling Stone Cold Steve Austin, destroying the unstoppable Mankind; putting him out for three months and beating him for the WWF championship. And then, defending it only a week later and dominating ... and, oh yeah, taking to school that little punk, your champion, The Rock! — Triple H

Bullshitting god would be Max's plan in a nutshell. Miles could even guess his father's opening gambit. He'd point out to God that if He expected better results, He ought to have given Max better character to work with, instead of sending him into battle so poorly equipped. — Richard Russo

It would not be like this. It would be a systematic campaign moving southward towards Ios, building on the support he had from the kyroi factions. He would not be stealing out of camp at night to spin mad plans, to dress in unfamiliar clothes and forge alliances with rogue clans, or to fight alongside pony-riding warriors, capturing bandits improbably in the mountains.
It would not be like this again. — C.S. Pacat

I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There's an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself - and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame. — Steve Carell

Bond's mind was clear again. By a miracle he had survived a devastating wound. He could feel his armpits still wet with the fear of it. But the success of his gambit with the chair had wiped out all memories of the dreadful valley of defeat through which he had just passed. — Ian Fleming

It doesn't require much for misfortune to strike in the King's Gambit - one incautious move, and Black can be on the edge of the abyss. — Anatoly Karpov

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. — David Bronstein

The delight in gambits is a sign of chess youth ... In very much the same way as the young man, on reaching his manhood years, lays aside the Indian stories and stories of adventure, and turns to the psychological novel, we with maturing experience leave off gambit playing and become interested in the less vivacious but withal more forceful manoeuvres of the position player. — Emanuel Lasker

To plunge into passionate dispute over the trivialities of so-called honor is a queerer but not uncommon gambit of men who have just come from putting their lives at stake in serious combat, — Barbara W. Tuchman

The average woman, unless she is particularly ill-favored, regards loving and being loved as a normal part of life. If a man says he loves her she believes him. Indeed some women are convinced they are adored by men who can be seen by all to be running in the opposite direction. For homosexuals this is not so. Love and admiration have to be won against heavy odds. Any declaration of affection requires proof. So many approaches made to them are insincere - even hostile. What better proof of love can there be than money? A ten-shilling note showed incontrovertibly just how mad about you a man is. Even in the minds of some women a confusion exists between love and money if the quantity is large enough. They evade the charge of mercenariness by using the cash they extort from one man to deal a bludgeoning blow of humiliation upon another. Some homosexuals attempt this gambit, but it is risky. The giving of money is a masculine act and blurs the internal image. — Quentin Crisp

Young gentlemen with literary aspirations usually start a new university magazine, which for wit and pungency is designed to eclipse all such previous efforts, and I was no exception in the matter of this popular gambit. — E.F. Benson

It's safe to say that 'Horror,' as a fictional genre, has claim to it's own canon. There is a definite history that can be traced back to the origins of human language, both orally and written, and now multimedia based. We at this point, have access to the full gambit of 'genre' Horror in all its hybrid forms (electronically at least). Sub-genres ensure that Horror can and will multiply in its complexities and evolve along with human fears. — William Cook

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'. — David Bronstein

The Wookiee gambit.' he said with a smile. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but somewhere in my head a distant memory was forming. He raised an eyebrow. 'Christ, Alex, what have they done to your brain? You don't remember Star Wars? — Alexander Gordon Smith

The game, whatever it was, had to be played out. If the change of rooms had been the opening gambit, so much the better. The game had to begin somewhere. — Ian Fleming

Verse after verse follows, her voice rising to a crescendo and then falling, only to rise again with a new passage, each echoing the same refrain. I never realized how many verses of the Bible boil down to, I tried to tell you idiots, but no - you wouldn't listen. — Rysa Walker

What?' he said. I'm sure he heard me perfectly well, but like most deaf people he's got in the habit of saying 'what?' automatically to every conversational gambit - I notice myself doing it sometimes. — David Lodge

Ordinary men live in fear all the time. Didn't you know that? We're afraid of the weather, we're afraid of powerful men, we're afraid of the night and the monsters that lurk in the dark, we're afraid of growing old and of dying. Sometimes we're even afraid of living. Ordinary men are afraid almost every minute of their lives. — David Eddings

When she had failed once or twice to respond to some conversational gambit or other, Bond also relapsed into silence and occupied himself with his own gloomy thoughts. — Ian Fleming

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 — Siegbert Tarrasch

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. — David Bronstein

A knowledge of tactics is the foundation of positional play. This is a rule which has stood its test in chess history and one which we cannot impress forcibly enough upon the young chess player. A beginner should avoid Queen's Gambit and French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game — Richard Reti

I love 'The X-Men;' that was the first comic series that I was dedicated to, because I feel like you can pick your player. 'I'm the most like Gambit ... or I'm totally a Storm.' — Taran Killam

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. — G.H. Hardy

Brutish strength combined with the elegance of the gambit - it was the mark of a true genius. Anyone could achieve power with a gun or a knife. The perfect riddle commanded its recipient to act in one way, and one way only. There was no greater mastery - and that was what the Riddler sought to achieve over Batman - absolute mastery. — Alex Irvine

I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs. — Charles De Lint

The reality is that Jesus knows exactly how things really are, and in fact he knows how things really are better than anyone else. We may look over the ethos of the Sermon on the Mount and find the whole thing utterly impractical toward getting ahead in the world, but one of the underlying points of the Sermon is that getting ahead in the world is a losing gambit to begin with. We come to Jesus's teaching looking for tips on playing checkers, when all along he is playing — Jared C. Wilson

There's the Ronald Reagan cupped-ear gambit. The press is deliberately and systematically kept away from him. All you hear is a bunch of monkeys screaming at him when they could easily have been brought right up and the president could have stood and talked in a conversational tone. — John Chancellor

Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit. — Anthony Braxton

Even in the King's Gambit ... White is no longer trying to attack at all costs. He has had to adapt his approach and look for moves with a solid positional foundation ... As often as not, his strategy consists of stifling Black's activity and then winning in an endgame thanks to his superior pawn structure. — Neil McDonald

I would murder to play Gambit again! — Taylor Kitsch

What the devil possessed me to reply 1 ... e5?? I compltely forgot that Spassky, like Spielmann in the past, very much likes to play the King's Gambit. — David Bronstein

Fossil fuels and mining is a short-term gambit. If we develop those resources at the expense of the environmental gold mine that is the Great Barrier Reef, we will all lose in the long run. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

In my opinion, the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force. — Bobby Fischer

Boris Vasilievich was the only top-class player of his generation who played gambits regularly and without fear ... Over a period of 30 years he did not lose a single game with the King's Gambit, and among those defeated were numerous strong players of all generations, from Averbakh, Bronstein and Fischer, to Seirawan. — Garry Kasparov

Damen felt it then, the first dizzy edge of new emotion, and he let go his hold of Laurent like a man fearing a precipice; and yet was helpless. — C.S. Pacat

However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747. — Richard Dawkins