All chess players know what a combination is. Whether one makes it oneself, or is its victim, or reads of it, it stands out from the rest of the game and stirs one's admiration.

It is unjust, and sometimes very untrue, though it is a common theory, to hold that it is sacrifices which make the beauty of a combination, and that the combination is prettier by the magnitude of the sacrifices.

The middlegame I repeat is chess itself, chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc.

Chess is a game of understanding and not of memory.

It is not a move, even the best move that you must seek, but a realizable plan

We should praise, rather, the courage of the player who, relying only on his intuition, plunges into a brilliant combination of which the issue does not appear to him too clear.

All conceptions in the game of chess have a geometrical basis.