Chess Quotes
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I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That's why programming - or buying software - on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess.
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...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple.
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For me, baseball is more comparable to chess than it is to hockey.
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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.
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In my country, at that time, being a champion of chess was like being a King. At that time I was a King - and when you are King you feel a lot of responsibility, but there is nobody there to help you.
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When I started out playing chess as a kid I thought I should be world champion. As a kid you have no idea what that means and you only sort of picture it. It is hard to imagine that I waited all those years and it happened in a late stage of my career.
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In the Soviets' view, chess was not merely an art or a science or even a sport; it was what it had been invented to simulate: war.
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Chess is a natural cerebral high.
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My very first book was a games collection of Anatoly Karpov. On the whole I was attracted by positonal play with some tactics, and already then I was aiming for universality.
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In life, as in chess, forethought wins.
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Your practical results will improve when you play what you know, like and have confidence in.
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The process of making pieces in Chess do something useful (whatever it may be) has received a special name: it is called the attack. The attack is that process by means of which you remove obstructions.
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Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation.
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He who wants to educate himself in Chess must evade what is dead in Chess... the habit of playing with inferior opponents; the custom of avoiding difficult tasks; the weakness of uncritically taking over variations or rules discovered by others; the vanity which is self-sufficient; the incapacity for admitting mistakes; in brief, everything that leas to standstill or to anarchy.
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Chess is imagination.
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I believe that, not only in chess, but in life in general, people place too much stock in ratings – they pay attention to which TV shows have the highest ratings, how many friends they have on Facebook, and it’s funny. The best shows often have low ratings and it is impossible to have thousands of real friends.
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The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.
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Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego.
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I always urge players to study composed problems and endgames.
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Chess is neither a science nor an art. It is what human nature most delights in--a fight.
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When I saw 'Chess' in London, I thought it was horrible. It was so static. People were coming down front and just facing the audience, singing.
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Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.
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Each outing is its own game. You roll on your game plan. It is a different chess match each time you go out there. I just try to be prepared.
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Who is your opponent tonight, tonight I am playing against the Black pieces
