Quotes & Sayings About Kasparov

Playing black, I put great stake in the Ruy Lopez: I liked it, feel it, and understand it; in matches with Hjartarson and Timman it served me well. - on preparing for World Championship versus Garry Kasparov — Anatoly Karpov

The human mind isn't a computer; it cannot progress in an orderly fashion down a list of candidate moves and rank them by a score down to the hundredth of a pawn the way a chess machine does. Even the most disciplined human mind wanders in the heat of competition. This is both a weakness and a strength of human cognition. Sometimes these undisciplined wanderings only weaken your analysis. Other times they lead to inspiration, to beautiful or paradoxical moves that were not on your initial list of candidates. — Garry Kasparov

Dictators seem to learn from history much better than democrats — Garry Kasparov

Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before. — Garry Kasparov

There can be no finer example of the inspiring powers of competition to shatter the status quo than Hungary's Judit Polgar. — Garry Kasparov

I'm still number one and I just recently won a major tournament ahead of my toughest rivals so I think I had a few years ahead of me if I decided to stay. — Garry Kasparov

I learned that fighting on the chess board could also have an impact on the political climate in the country. — Garry Kasparov

Next to the intellectual stimulation of chess, the educational value is of great importance. Chess teaches logic, imagination, self-discipline, and determination. — Garry Kasparov

It's not enough to be talented. It's not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you use to reach your decisions. — Garry Kasparov

I have great energy and I have great tasks ahead of me. — Garry Kasparov

I wouldn't overestimate the importance of my popularity in the country and abroad but at the end of the day it's not as important because I believe that my presence here could make some difference and it could encourage people. — Garry Kasparov

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

Chess is mental torture. — Garry Kasparov

Telling Ukrainians they provoked Putin by rejecting him and moving toward Europe is like telling a harassed woman she should wear longer skirts. Do not lose sight of who is the offender and who is the victim! — Garry Kasparov

I have some security that could protect me against provocations but of course there are more terrible actions that could not be stopped by any security. — Garry Kasparov

If, in our first match for the world champion's title, I had managed to make the score 6-0, there would have been no Kasparov as a good chess player at all. — Anatoly Karpov

My opponent is Short and the match will be short. — Garry Kasparov

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice. — Garry Kasparov

[Vladimir] Putin needs wars to legitimize his position. — Garry Kasparov

The West can't come up with anything to deal with Moscow, except appeasement. — Garry Kasparov

In chess, we have styles - like in any other field. There are also fashions in the kinds of systems that people play. So I'm trying to know my opponent as much as possible. — Garry Kasparov

Russia is a mafia state today, and Putin is its top godfather. — Garry Kasparov

All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after Kasparov. — Garry Kasparov

My love of dynamic complications often led me to avoid simplicity when perhaps it was the wisest choice. — Garry Kasparov

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

I have some strategical vision, I could calculate some few moves ahead and I have an intellect that is badly missed in the country which is run by generals and colonels. — Garry Kasparov

Recently I saw Kasparov and he looked to me as still young and potent champion. — Boris Spassky

I feel that my relationship with Kasparov now is much the same as it had been before the match - good. As for his reaction, well it can't be nice to lose your title after so long, but he was very generous. — Vladimir Kramnik

I started playing chess when I was five years old. I learned the moves from my mother, then worked with my father - and later trainers. My style became very technical. I sacrificed a lot of things. I was always hunting for the king, for the mate. I'd forget about my other pieces. — Garry Kasparov

I used to play a lot of chess and competitive chess and study chess and as you get to the grandmasters and learn their styles when you start copying their games like the way they express themselves through ... The way Kasparov or Bobby Fischer expresses themselves through a game of chess is it's astonishing. You can show a chess master one of their games and they'll say "Yeah, that is done by that player." — Rainn Wilson

If you don't take risks, you don't drink champagne. — Garry Kasparov

I dropped the King's Indian in 1997 after one too many bad experiences against Kramnik. — Garry Kasparov

I may play some exhibition games so I don't want to quit the game of chess completely. I just decided and it's a firm decision not to play competitive chess anymore. — Garry Kasparov

I would like to travel to my country again, to a country without a dictatorship, to a post-Putin Russia. — Garry Kasparov

It didn't take long to recognise the shortcomings of the Soviet regime and to see the values of the free world. — Garry Kasparov

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

It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better. — Garry Kasparov

A moral foreign policy means your positions on certain matters are clear no matter what, and that you won't forget about them when it's convenient. — Garry Kasparov

By the mid-1990s the number of people with some experience of using computers was many orders of magnitude greater than in the 1960s. In the Kasparov defeat they recognized that here was a great triumph for programmers, but not one that may compete with the human intelligence that helps us to lead our lives. — Igor Aleksander

I don't really like discussions about a supposed Russian national character. — Garry Kasparov

The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play. — Garry Kasparov

The Kremlin is constantly changing the rules of the game to suit its purposes. We are not playing chess, we're playing roulette. — Garry Kasparov

After that, Kasparov stepped back from chess which is, and I want this to be clear, not good for chess in general at all. As a whole, the current situation in the chess world leaves a lot to be desired. — Anatoly Karpov

But evil does not die, just as history does not end. Like a weed, evil can be cut back but never entirely uprooted. It waits for its chance to spread through the cracks in our vigilance. It can take root in the fertile soil of our complacency, or even the rocky rubble of the fallen Berlin Wall. — Garry Kasparov

I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, '84-'85. But the God-damn Jews have stolen my entire file on that. — 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

The public must come to see that chess is a violent sport. Chess is mental torture. — Garry Kasparov

I've seen - both in myself and my competitors - how satisfaction can lead to a lack of vigilance, then to mistakes and missed opportunities. — Garry Kasparov

It's quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess. — Garry Kasparov

Many politicians in the West cling to the notion of a partnership with Russia. They want to include [Vladimir] Putin, make compromises and constantly negotiate new deals with him. But history has taught us that the longer we pursue appeasement and do nothing, the higher the price will be later on. Dictators don't ask "Why?" before they seize even more power. They ask: "Why not?" — Garry Kasparov

If you're already in a fight, you want the first blow to be the last and you had better be the one to throw it. — Garry Kasparov

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

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed. — Garry Kasparov

Weaknesses of character are normally shown in a game of chess. — Garry Kasparov

A grandmaster must memorize thousands of chess duels in his head, as these are for him what words of the mother tongue are to the ordinary people and what notes are to a musician. — Garry Kasparov

My nature is that I have to excite myself with a big challenge. — Garry Kasparov

The highest Art of the Chess player lies in not allowing your Opponent to show you what he can do. — Garry Kasparov

Kortchnoi's heritage is many-faceted - over the decades he has several times corrected and changed his style. But the main thing has invariably remained his search for chess truth. — Garry Kasparov

This obligation to move can be a burden to a player without strategic vision. — Garry Kasparov

[Vladimir] Putin wants to keep [Bashar] Assad in power and expand his own military base in Syria, whatever the cost. I even believe he has an interest in more and more people fleeing the country. The flow of refugees improves his negotiating position toward the West, including the German chancellor. — Garry Kasparov

I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention. — Garry Kasparov

Russian Parliament today is a bunch of puppets that just fall in with the instructions from Kremlin. — Garry Kasparov

Vladimir Putin mainly has friends in Europe among the extreme right, such as Marine Le Pen's Front National in France. — Garry Kasparov

It is not what a government does with data that defines it; it is what it does to human beings. Any — Garry Kasparov

Putin is like Al Capone. — Garry Kasparov

A grandmaster needs to retain thousands of games in his head, for games are to him what the words of their mother tongue are to ordinary people, or notes or scores to musicians.. — Garry Kasparov

When [Vladimir] Putin, a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB, became Russia's president on December 31, 1999 - eight years after the failed coup attempt against (then Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev, and eight years after the people had torn down the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the hated founder of the KGB, in Moscow - it was admittedly a shock. Nevertheless, I decided to give Putin a chance. He seemed dynamic and capable of learning. But I had to bury my hopes after just a few months. He proved to be an autocrat - and, because the West let him do as he pleased, he became a dictator. — Garry Kasparov

In chess, bigamy is acceptable but monarchy is absolute. — Garry Kasparov

There is no one that can share your responsibility. It it is your responsibility you must carry it on and you must be responsible for your actions. At the end of the day we all are being challenged, sooner or later, by our destiny. And it's up to us to make all the difference in this life. If not you, who else? — Garry Kasparov

In conclusion, if you want to unravel the multitude of secrets of chess then don't begrudge the time. — Garry Kasparov

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

Any experienced player knows how a change in the character of the play influences your psychological mood. — Garry Kasparov

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser. — Garry Kasparov

Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down. — Garry Kasparov

Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature. — Garry Kasparov

Somehow, people always forget that it's much easier to install a dictator than to remove one — Garry Kasparov

Attackers may sometimes regret bad moves, but it is much worse to forever regret an opportunity you allowed to pass you by. — Garry Kasparov

Nervous energy is the ammunition we take into any mental battle. If you don't have enough of it, your concentration will fade. If you have a surplus, the results will explode. — Garry Kasparov

I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer. — Garry Kasparov

Repression may begin as a means to an end, but it always ends up being an end unto itself — Garry Kasparov

The real political life in Russia unfortunately is not in the parliament but on the streets and in the media. — Garry Kasparov

With this mistake I deprived myself of the possibility to make a contribution to the treasury of chess art. — Garry Kasparov

One of the strengths, and weaknesses, of liberal democratic societies is giving the benefit of the doubt even to one's enemies — Garry Kasparov

[Vladimir] Putin spoke unabashedly about the importance of national sovereignty in Syria, a concept apparently near and dear to his heart, unless it comes to the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine or any other country in which he intervenes. Then he offered his cooperation, but without making any concrete concessions at all. And he didn't have to, either. He knows what he can rely on. He has assets that are more valuable than words: He has tanks in Ukraine, fighter jets in Syria - and Barack Obama in the White House. — Garry Kasparov

I think that it's a vital moment now for Russian democracy to convince people that it's only our actions, our joined actions and protests that could force Kremlin to reconsider its plans to abolish presidential elections. — Garry Kasparov

The only successor to President Putin is President Putin himself and we could of course dream about President Putin stepping down voluntarily and picking out successor which would be probably as bad as him. — Garry Kasparov

Chess is not dominoes — Garry Kasparov

History does not end; it runs in cycles. The failure to defend Ukraine today is the failure of the Allies to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938. The world must act now so that Poland in 2015 will not be called on to play the role of Poland in 1939. — Garry Kasparov

Chess is one of the few arts where composition takes place simultaneously with performance — Garry Kasparov

Putin recognized that if he could get enough money, everything would be under control. — Garry Kasparov

Things are currently the other way around in [Vladimir] Putin's realm. But it won't stay that way forever. — Garry Kasparov

If critics and competitors can't match your results, they will often denigrate the way you achieve them. Fast, intuitive types are called lazy. Dedicated burners of the midnight oil are called obsessed. And while it's obviously not a bad idea to hear and consider the opinions of others, you should be suspicious when these criticisms emerge right on the heels of success. — Garry Kasparov

If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure. — Garry Kasparov

Millions like me in Russia want a free press, the rule of law, social justice, and free and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for these fundamental rights. — Garry Kasparov

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book! — Bobby Fischer

Part of my preparation for the World Champion match against Kasparov was to be ready for his off-board tactics. I did not to react to them at all. Once you start thinking about these things during the game, even analysing them, you're caught. — Vladimir Kramnik

It was not about losing my mental power; it's about not feeling good about my contribution to the game. — Garry Kasparov

Boris Nemtsov and I began to argue after Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. In my opinion, there was no longer a realistic chance to achieve regime change through peaceful political means, or real elections. Boris, on the other hand, never lost this hope. He felt that my assessment was premature and said: "You have to live a long time to see changes in Russia." He was deprived of that opportunity. — Garry Kasparov

Do as little as necessary to appear to be doing something without actually committing to a cause or course of action. — Garry Kasparov

One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people - men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach. — Magnus Carlsen