Quotes About Chess

My parents were very supportive of my chess. When I got home after a game of chess, having missed school or something, they always made me feel very welcome; I didn't feel guilty at all about pursuing chess with such fervour. They never, for instance, perceived sports as a rival to academics.

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He [Capablanca] wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

Well, I kind of split my life into two pieces. One was where my chess career lies. There, I kept my sanity, so to speak, and my logic. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career too. But I still was studying chess. I wasn't just "trusting in God" to give me the moves.

It's the horsey-shape piece that moves in an L shape. It's what makes chess complicated, and why stupid people can't play chess. Go play checkers! Knights are the first piece you look at. They elevate the game. No chess master wants to lose her knights.

Chess is similar to boxing. You need to develop a strategy, and you need to think two or three steps ahead about what your opponent is doing. You have to be smart. But what’s the difference between chess and boxing? In chess, nobody is an expert, but everybody plays. In boxing everybody is an expert, but nobody fights.

The essence of Chess is thinking about what Chess is.

Capablanca was snatched too early from the chess world. With his death we have lost a great chess genius, the like of whom we will never see again.

Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.

Well I just so happened to bump into a chess book in the library at school and I didn't know that there were books on chess and so I take this book out and I'm like this is going to be cool, I'm going to whoop on this guy now, so I studied the book and I go back and the guy crushes me again.

I play chess about four hours a day in training camp. You have to decide what move to use, or what combination of moves. I think less when I box because the reaction time is a lot quicker, but some people call me the chess boxer because they say I think too much in the ring. I take my time and they don't see the action they want. Some boxers just go in there and just throw punches and hope to win.

Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.

We can compare classical chess and rapid chess with theatre and cinema - some actors don't like the latter and prefer to work in the theatre.

I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity the man who has remained ignorant of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make man happy.

Chess you don't learn, chess you understand.

Earlier in my career, I never thought of boxing as a chess game, but I confirm that they are, in fact, very similar. You can plan your fights and strategy just like you would in chess.

I don't know how many calories an average chess player burns per game, but it often exceeds that of a player in ball games. It is not only the chess as such: You need to be fit and undergo complicated preparation.

Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately

I really chess-play culture shifts. I'm really good at understanding what worldwide cell-phone use means. That's what I do. I try to picture it three to four to five steps ahead.

Chess is a cure for headaches.

We often hear the terms 'positional' and 'tactical' used as opposites. But this is as wrong as to consider a painting's composition unrelated to its subject. Just as there is no such thing as 'artistic' art, so there is no such thing as 'positional' chess.

I got arrested for playing chess in the street. I said, it's because I'm black, isn't it.

Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.

Because of the level of my chess game, I was able - even against a weak opponent, such as my younger brothers or the dog - to get myself checkmated in under three minutes. I challenge any computer to do it faster.

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

I don't play chess with my life, ya' know.

The only positive contribution to chess from Fischer in the last 20 years.

I claim that nothing else is so effective in encouraging the growth of chess strength as such independent analysis, both of the games of the great players and your own.

Chess can never reach its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into a battle of ideas.

Many men, many styles; what is chess style but the intangible expression of the will to win.

In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this.

FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Champion title.

You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic, clumsy and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess.

Golf is the loneliest of games, not excluding postal chess.

The truth is that throughout my careers in both chess and the martial arts, I often knew that my rivals were more naturally gifted than me - either with their mental machines or their bodies. But I have believed in my training, my approach to learning, and my ability to rise to the challenge under pressure.

I believe that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands.

Chess will always be in the doldrums as a spectator sport while a draw is given equal mathematical value as a decisive result.

Far be it from me to force anyone into either chess or dressage, but if you choose to do so yourself, in my opinion there is only one way: follow the rules.

It is rightly said that the most difficult thing in chess is winning a won position

I want to serve chess through games, books that are works of art. I would like to bring the game closer to many people all over the world.

No matter how much theory progresses, how radically styles change, chess play is inconceivable without tactics.

But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.

Fischer is an American Chess tragedy on par with Morphy and Pillsbury

Chess is a curse upon a man.

The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure.

Within these premises, the only thing one can be is an impeccable mediator. One is not the player in this cosmic match of chess, one is simply a pawn on the chessboard. What decides everything is a conscious impersonal energy that sorcerers call intent or the Spirit.

In life, as in Chess, ones own Pawns block ones way. A mans very wealth, ease, leisure, children, books, which should help him to win, more often checkmate him

You always have to be keeping track, especially in this scenario [ The Hateful Eight], of where everybody is. They're pieces on a chess board.

Capablanca possessed an amazing ability to quickly see into a position and intuitively grasp its main features. His style, one of the purest, most crystal-clear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one with his logic.