nimzotech
Diamond Member

Morphy was propably the greatest genius of them all.

- Bobby Fischer


Counterplay is the cutting edge of defense. Without counter-chances--that is, countervailing threats against the opponent's weaknesses--the defender has to wage the lonely battle of parrying threats against his own position one at a time. His role is automatically passive and his best reward is respite from new threats. But with counterplay his reward is the turnover of the initiative. And the initiative, once in the hands of the defender, is the key to every defensive theory.

-Andrew Solits


 

Attack is the best defence

- Alexander Alekhine


 

In chess there are only two styles - good, that is: leading to a win, and bad, that is: leading to a loss. In every position a possible combination is concealed and every combination arises from the position. If after the opponent's move a so-called positional player is not capable of calculating a possiblie winning combination 5-6 moves ahead, then he is not a positional player, but simply a patzer...

- Mikhail Chigorin


 

Each move is a treasure, to be spent only in the most useful way.

- Gligoric


Respect laws, keep your pawns strong and mobile, blockade enemy pawn masses capable of advancing, and otherwise strive for centralization of pieces, pay attention to the seventh rank, and don't forget to create passed pawns for yourself. And so you'll see, we will still remain together virtuously and gain many nice victories, to the delight of yourself and your old chess mentor.  

-Aaron Nimzowitsch