CHESS CHAMPS'S Chess Quotes: ---------------------------- What is chess? Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders - Savielly Tartakower Chess is a beautiful mistress. - Larsen Chess is life - Bobby Fischer Chess is like life - Boris Spassky Chess is everything - art, science, and sport. - Karpov Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann Chess is really 99 percent calculation - Soltis Chess is mental torture. - Kasparov Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people. - Nigel Short Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe - Indian proverb Chess is as much a mystery as women - Purdy Reflections: Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy. - Tarrasch You cannot play at chess if you are kind-hearted. - French Proverb Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all. - Fischer Every chess master was once a beginner. - Chernev Life is too short for chess. - Byron A good player is always lucky. - Capablanca A chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third... when you know you're going to lose! - Tartakower When the chess game is over, the pawn and the king go back to the same box - Irish saying. General Tips: When you see a good move wait - look for a better one. - Emanuel Lasker Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine. - Spielmann All that matters on the chessboard is good moves. - Bobby Fischer The pawns are the soul of chess. - Philidor Tactics: The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made. - Tartakover No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King. - Koblentz The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. - Tartakover A man surprised is half beaten. - Proverb Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine. - Tal The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary. - Nimzovich The pin is mightier than the sword. - Reinfeld The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind. - Emanuel Lasker Discovered check is the dive-bomber of the chessboard. - Fine If the student forces himself to examine all moves that smite, however absurd they may look at first glance, he is on the way to becoming a master of tactics. - Purdy The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do. - Gerald Abrahams Examine moves that smite! A good eye for smites is far more important than a knowledge of strategical principles. - Purdy The scheme of a game is played on positional lines; the decision of it, as a rule, is effected by combinations. - Reti 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. - Yates and Winter A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes the most complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them not only not difficult, but almost a matter of course. - Tarrasch It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men. - Tartakover Middlegame: The middlegame I repeat is chess itself; chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc. - Znosko-Borovsky Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame. - Tarrasch Endgame: Every pawn is a potential Queen. - Mason The Passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient. - Nimzovich A Passed Pawn increases in strength as the number of pieces on the board diminishes. - Capablanca Any material change in a position must come about by mate, a capture, or a Pawn promotion. - Purdy Planning: Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all. - Mikhail Chigorin It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan. - Znosko-Borovsky Analysis: Methodical thinking is of more use in chess than inspiration. - Purdy Chess is the art of analysis. Chess mastery essentially consists of analysing chess positions accurately. - Botvinnik 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 Tinman - Which World Champion, when asked an autoograph once signed with the name of another future World Champion. Mikhail Tal. He played this joke during the Candidates Tournament in 1959, saying he had this right after beating Fischer so many times!