The hardest game to win is a won game

By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight.

The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's brain.

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.

The attack is that process by means of which you remove obstructions.

A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance.

Loss generally occurs when a player overrates his advantage or for other reasons seeks to derive from a minute advantage a great return such as a forced win.