Chess Quotes - page 9

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. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don't like chess any more. (Bobby Fischer)
Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player. View quote
William Golding
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility. View quote
Richard Dawkins
Chess truly uncovers whether or not someone has imagination and takes initiative. View quote
Christian Morgenstern
I can relate to many of the emotions they describe...But personally I just like to get on with the job of playing chess. I understand that if I win, I'm probably crushing my opponent's ego but it's not like I do that with great satisfaction. So I don't really look for conflict around the game ... It's true that someone like Kasparov has this sense of history, and I'm talking world history rather than chess history. He has a sense of himself being in it, which, for me, is very hard to understand or even relate to in any way. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
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. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
I attend to my fitness. I go the gym every day and try to maintain my physical fitness; without that, it is tough to take challenges on the chess board. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
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. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
It's important, according to me, to train in small doses so as to not lose the joy of playing chess. I personally think too many coaching and training classes may take away a child's interest in the game itself. The essential thing to do is practise often and, in case of a doubt, to consult a trainer. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
To become a world chess champion. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
...in 2000, when I defeated Alexei Shirov at the World Chess Championship in Teheran to become the first Indian ever to win the title. (Viswanathan Anand)
When I started out, Indians did not have much interest in chess...Now India seems to spawn new chess academies every day. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
My dream is chess played in every school in India. The Soviets would include a chessboard along with the bride's trousseau to ensure that the children born of that marriage knew the rules of chess. View quote
Viswanathan Anand
The art is French, but the ideas may have come from anywhere, like the game of chess which the pilgrims or crusaders brought home from Syria. In the oriental game, the King was followed step by step by a Minister whose functions were personal. The crusaders freed the piece from control; gave it liberty to move up or down or diagonally, forwards and backwards; made it the most arbitrary and formidable champion on the board, while the King and the Knight were the most restricted in movement; and this piece they named Queen and called the Virgin. View quote
Henry Adams
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. View quote
Anatol Rapoport
Game theory applies to a very different type of conflict, now technically called a game. The well-known games such as poker, chess, ticktacktoe and so forth are games in the strict technical Bark and counterbark sense. But what makes parlor games games is not their entertainment value or detachment from real life. View quote
Anatol Rapoport
Marital sex is kinda like ordering a Civil War chess set through the mail. You get one piece every four to six weeks, you don't know what kind of shape that piece is gonna be in when you get it, but you still gotta pay the handling charges. View quote
Bill Engvall
Ensemble is hard to do. It's like 3-D chess. View quote
Eric Bogosian
In life, as in chess, forethought wins. View quote
Charles Buxton
But, I was as helpless as a chess piece when I was lifted up by someone's hand And delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself. View quote
Conor Oberst
Education in Chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judgement. Chess must not be memorized, simply because it is not important enough... Memory is too valuable to be stocked with trifles. (Emanuel Lasker)
Put two players against each other who both have perfect technique, who both avoid weaknesses, and what is left?-a sorry caricature of chess. View quote
Emanuel Lasker
I'm only interested in playing competitively if there's serious money on the line. I love playing, but at this point I need a concrete incentive to devote the time necessary to make that happen. If chess was my only love, I'd do it in spite of the financial hurdles. But because I love so many other things, writing and editing in particular, it makes sense to me to focus on that now. View quote
Jennifer Shahade
All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess. View quote
Marcel Duchamp
I have been wanting to write to you for some time, but never have time, so absorbed I am in playing chess. I play night and day and nothing in the whole world interests me more than finding the right move... Nothing transcendental going on here – strikes [in Buenos Aires, where chess competitions were organized that year for not professionals] a lot of strikes, the people are on the move. Painting interests me less and less. View quote
Marcel Duchamp