Those chess lovers who ask me how many moves I usually calculate in advance, when making a combination, are always astonished when I reply, quite truthfully, 'as a rule not a single one'

The essential disadvantage of the isolated pawn ... lies not in the pawn itself, but in the square in front of the pawn.

Most chess players know, thanks to the study of master games, that two bishops are stronger than two knights or than bishop and knight, though very few know the reason for this advantage and how to turn it to account.

We perceive after a careful consideration of the evolution of the chess mind that such evolution has gone on, in general, in a way quite similar to that in which it goes on with the individual chess player, only with the latter more rapidly.

The majority of people imagine a chess master as being a townsman who passes his life in an atmosphere of smoke and play in cafes and clubs: a neurasthenic individual, whose nerves and brains are continually working at tension: a one-sided person who has given up his whole soul to chess.

A knowledge of combinations is the foundation of positional chess.

No one has ever played these endgames with such elegant ease as Capablanca.