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.

The placing of the centre pawns determines the "topography" of a game of chess.

The main thing that develops positional judgement, that perfects it and makes it many-sided, is detailed analytical work, sensible tournament practice, a self-critical attitude to your games and a rooting out of all the defects in your play.

It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.

My achievements in the field of chess are the result of immense hard work in studying theory.

I cannot think that a player genuinely loving the game can get pleasure just from the number of points scored no matter how impressive the total. I will not speak of myself, but for the masters of the older generation, from whose games we learned, the aesthetic side was the most important. -

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!