Chess QuoteMasters #3: Siegbert Tarrasch
Quixotic, querulous quests to qualify and question quote quality and quantity leave me dazed. Who actually said what, when, and why? Did someone else put some or all of those words in their mouth?
More on those concerns in the body of this post. Perhaps too much, but that's the nature of the beast...though it also offers levity, imo. Well, it also suggests that those who 'quote' others (e.g., me) need to cultivate a concern for the intellectual cancer of hubris regarding provenance.
In the meantime, we've reached the #3 entry in the Chess Quote Master (QM) Hall of Fame (HoF). If you missed any or all of numbers four through ten, don't worry. I provided links at the end of the post that allow you to jump to prior posts in this series.
In this post, you'll be reminded of/introduced to the QM candidates and even asked to name who you think will fill spots one and two. In the formal Introduction below, you'll read about why I embarked on this mission of discovery. During the post you'll hear brief snatches of what I learned about the QMs (and myself) along the way, and why I ranked Tarrasch third.
You'll have to come back for the remaining QM blogs to learn why I placed the Top Two in the order I chose.
Questions for the Reader to Ponder
Why QM Tarrasch Earned the #3 Spot
Reminder About Those "Questions for the Reader"
Why a QM HoF? Well, you can find multiple sites that list plenty of chess quotes (e.g., Chess Quotes - Wisdom and Interest). Some even let you find quotes by a specific individual or at least on a topic, e.g., tactics.
Heck, you might even have an opinion on the greatest chess quote! Certainly, it wouldn't surprise anyone if you have a favorite quote. For many of us there's some quote that has stuck with us through thick and thin, like a jingle we can't shake out of our head. Can anyone get "Control the center with your pawns" out of their head, no matter how often that turns out to be untrue? Or you may have switched your allegiance to some other quote over the weeks, months, years, or decades of your chess experience. [If Lazarus is reading this, please remember that millennia are constructed of decades. The same goes for Connor MacLeod, aka, The Highlander.]
But have you ever spent some time speculating about who produced the best chess quotes and in the greatest quantity? Hey, it's no problem if you haven't considered the issue! I'm more than willing to fill that particular void in your thoughts with my opinions!!
What makes my opinions better than yours? Well, my opinion is informed by decades of chess and a (slowly shrinking) chess library that still occupies multiple shelves in my library [at the same time, my electronic chess library grows weekly and far more rapidly]. Primarily, though, I'm the one who took the time to put some thought into this sorely overlooked aspect of chess history, a Top Ten ranking of the greatest Chess QuoteMasters (QMs) of all time. [NOTE: I'll offer a bevy ("bevy" is not short for "Beverly", though my mom might find it amusing) of quotes from numbers 11 – 23 at a later date.]
Still, it's just a set of my opinions. Besides, if you don't fully agree with my judgments, though I can hardly imagine such a contrary, confused, and contumacious state of mind, then chess.com generously provided a comments section so you can express your agreements, disagreements, quibbles, corrections, expansions, nominations, and questions. Some of which I will respond to!
Next, we quickly review the candidates.
The candidates, in alphabetical order starting from the top left corner, are Alekhine, Bronstein, Capablanca, Dvoretsky, Fischer, Kasparov, Kotov, Lakdawala, Emanuel Lasker, Mednis, Nimzowitsch, Nunn, Pachman, Romanovsky, Seirawan, Silman, Soltis, Spielmann, Steinitz, Tal, Tarrasch, Tartakower, and Znosko-Borovsky. I thought about switching it up in one post in this series and listing them in reverse alphabetical order...still time for that superficial act, but it would just remind me how rarely that happened in school, and "S" is quite a way down the alphabet. Alphabetic discrimination of a most despairing and underreported kind.
No, you can't add anyone to the candidate's list. All the selecting has already been done, and that's that, so it's too late to nominate anyone else. And the choices for #1 to #10 are also locked in the electrons orbiting inside my computer. So there! (Well, until 21 October 2025 I was still uncertain about who is number one and who is number two, but that was my dilemma, now resolved.)
You may have noted there are more than ten candidates, twenty-three in point of fact! Well, of course there are! Otherwise, you could start making some incredibly well-informed guesses after the first five were announced. Now there's at least an attempt to shroud the results in a bit of mystery as we prepare to learn the names of the Top Two!
Buckle up, buttercup. I've got questions for YOU!!
Questions for the Reader
Thought I'd prompt you up front on some of the questions you might want to ponder while reading, and before commenting on the blog at the end.
| Based on the quotes you're about to read, already read for other QMs, or simply your ill-advised, preconceived notions, was Tarrasch a good choice for the number three spot? |
| Who do you think will take the number 2 spot? The only correct guess to date was by @PokeGirl93. She nailed it for the #4 QM HoF entrant, Mikhail Tal! |
| Who do you think will take the number one spot? |
Some Q&As from earlier blogs in this series.
| Question | Current Votes (last updated: 07192025: 5:32 PM EST) |
| Who do you think was left out? | Philidor (1), Morphy (1), Giri (1), Grischuk (1), Rozman (1), Tony Miles (1) |
| Who do you think won't make the QM Top Ten at all? | Capablanca (1), @DocSimoo's Grandma (1)👍🏻, Alekhine (1), Lakdawala (1), Znosko-Borovsky (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number ten spot? |
Bronstein (1), Nimzowitsch (1), Spassky (1), Tarrasch (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number nine spot? | Pachman (1), Lasker (1), Steinitz (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number eight spot? | Lasker (1), Nimzowitsch (1), Steinitz (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number seven spot? | Lasker (1), Lakdawala (1), Tartakower (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number six spot? | Lasker (1), Lakdawala (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number five spot? | Lasker (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number four spot? | Tal (1) 👍🏻kudos to @PokeGirl93!!🏅, Lasker (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number three spot? | Lasker (1) Dvoretsky (1) |
| Who did people think would take the number one spot? | Nimzowitsch (2), Fischer (½*), Tal (1/2*), Tarrasch (1)***, Kasparov (1), tbd |
* @DocSimoo split their vote for #1 between Fischer and Tal. Those half-votes were a nice trick play, but that ploy failed. Nice try though!
** It's clear we have a Lasker fan, but I won't mention the kiwi girl's name.
*** Our titled player got convinced by a friend of theirs to change their previous vote for #1 from Nimzo to Tarrasch.👎🏻 Oh, no, Mr. Bill! Changing your move under time pressure, what would you tell your students? This post puts the kibosh on that vote.
#34 chess.com Hall of Fame: Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch (5 March 1862 – 17 February 1934) was a German master, M.D., and one of the most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was known in Germany as Praeceptor Germaniae for his efforts to make chess concepts accessible to the average player. ChessMetrics estimates his peak rating at 2824 in June 1895 and lists him at #2 globally for 111 different months between October 1890 and November 1906.
However, he was no match for Lasker whose scores against top competition were better than Tarrasch could achieve. When matched in the 1908 World CC, Lasker won with 8W-5D-3L (see @kahns A Century of Chess: Lasker-Tarrasch 1908). Tarrasch lost even more resoundingly in a 1916 match with Lasker winning five games and only one draw between them.
What did others have to say about Tarrasch?
Tarrasch's 'dogmas' are not eternal truisms, but merely instructional material presented in an accessible and witty form, those necessary rudiments from which one can begin to grasp the secrets of chess. – Garry Kasparov Chess Quotes - Theory
Chess strategy as such today is still in its diapers, despite Tarrasch's statement 'We live today in a beautiful time of progress in all fields'. Not even the slightest attempt has been made to explore and formulate the laws of chess strategy. – Aaron Nimzowitsch Chess Quotes - Theory
To my mind, Tarrasch is a very weak tactician. Coming always well prepared to his matches; he becomes terribly flustered in emergencies and at unexpected developments. He thinks long and painfully over his moves, for to Tarrasch the loss of a game is worse than the tortures of hell. – Capablanca, Evening Post, New York, 22 July 1916, p.9.
There is no game on earth played by anybody but Dr Tarrasch in which he would not point out a mistake or a faster road to victory or improvement of some kind. In his criticisms his personality must be predominant. This is the one great weakness of the doctor’s critical judgment. – Emanual Lasker, Lasker’s Chess Magazine, January 1906, page 126 (There was tremendous hostility between these two goliaths of the game.)
Tarrasch was certainly one of the great masters of all time. His brilliant period extended from 1889 to 1907. Order and method were his gods. When everything went right, he was unbeatable. But he ruled out the personal factors in chess, and that was his undoing. In defeat poor Tarrasch had the longest list of the most curious alibis ever seen in the chess world. In fact, some people rudely suggested that his alibis were more ingenious than his chess. – Fred Reinfeld, How to Play Chess Like a Champion, 1956, p.79. [Edward Winter's site suggests that Reinfeld did not adequately substantiate this claim. Siegbert Tarrasch by Edward Winter]
The proponents of Steinitz' theory - Tarrasch and his supporters - tried to express Steinitz' teaching in the form of laconic rules, and as often happens in such cases, they went too far. The laconic tended to become dogmatic, and chess began to lose its freshness, originality and charm. - Kotov Chess Quotes - Theory
You can read more about Tarrasch in @simaginfan’s My Favourite Annotators. Part Eight. Siegbert Tarrasch or @DonMcKim’s Siegbert Tarrasch or @kahns A Century of Chess: Siegbert Tarrasch (1920-29) or @AstroTheoretical_Physics Most Important Players in Chess History. Even IM Jeremy Silman took time to blog about Tarrasch: The Great Siegbert Tarrasch: Puzzles And Games—clearly this Tarrasch guy is influential!!
Some Selected Tarrasch Writings
Tarrasch formalized many of Steinitz’s dictums (e.g., control of the center, the value of space, the advantage of the bishop pair) but emphasized dynamic play and piece mobility far more than Steinitz. Though the hypermodernists, particularly Nimzowitsch, ridiculed Tarrasch for what they perceived as his dogmatic style, he in fact played far more flexibly than they were inclined to acknowledge.
Several openings and variations are attributed to him, notably the Tarrasch Defense and the Tarrasch variations in the French Defense and the Ruy Lopez (more commonly known as the Open Defense to the Ruy Lopez). Then there is the Tarrasch Rule which states that rooks belong behind passed pawns in endgames.
His two most well-known books were Three Hundred Chess Games and The Game of Chess, but his edition of St. Petersburg 1914 International Chess Tournament certainly merits mention. He also edited two chess magazines.
Okay, let's get to the heart of the matter, the ten quotes allowed to each candidate for the QM Top Ten.
You'll observe Quote #1 in the image above. As I explained in the Criteria, it's important to me to be able to visualize at least one quote. Let's move on to the remaining nine quotes.
Tempo is the soul of chess. [Tarrasch’s Schachzeitung, 15 November 1933, p.56]
Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head. Humourous Chess Quotes
When you don’t know what to do, wait for your opponent to get an idea — it’s sure to be wrong! Humourous Chess Quotes
What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game. Chess Quotes - Gambits
One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent. Chess Quotes - Success
I believed that to win it was quite sufficient for me to sit down at the board and make moves. [Dreihundert Schachpartien, Tarrasch, 1895, p.206]
I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess. [Das Schachspiel, Tarrasch, 1931, preface]
Any moderately talented player, he need not be exceptionally gifted, can become a master. But really, there is no need for that. The right standpoint is to play for pleasure – and do not think that pleasure is proportional to skill. The greatest bunglers are constantly deriving the greatest pleasure from chess – they go into ecstasies of delight when their knight forks a king and queen. [The Game of Chess, Tarrasch, London, 1935, p.xi]
First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game. Chess Quotes by Siegbert Tarrasch
There was a certain measure and rhythmic pattern to many of Tarrasch's quotes (and numerous variants thereof that he threw out as he felt the occasion demanded). They're almost Yoda-like for fellow Star Wars fans. Just consider the following.
It is not enough to be a good player, you must also play well. [Dreihundert Schachpartien, Tarrasch, 1895, p.206]
It is not enough to have a won game: one must also win it.
One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent. Chess Quotes - Success
First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game. Chess Quotes by Siegbert Tarrasch
As a result, many have developed similar quotes that were often attributed to Tarrasch as lazy authors (I can be as guilty as the rest of them) often chose not to look for source documents. It reminds me of the International Imitation Hemingway Competition (also known as the Bad Hemingway Competition). Below are a few samples of Tarrasch-like sayings...perhaps they should be referred to as The Trash Quotes! or Trash-isms! Feel free to add to the collection that continues to gather momentum on the internet.
It is not enough to sacrifice: one must also sacrifice enough.
It is not enough to write down one’s games: one must also write them up.
To win, it is not enough that your opponent be a weak player: he must also play weakly.
It is not enough to compose a maxim: one must also be Tarrasch.
As I'll discuss further in Why Tarrasch Earned the #3 Spot, any number of quotes are attributed to Tarrasch for which it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to establish provenance. But many are amusing and insightful. So, for your edification, enjoy the following.
Chess is a terrible game. If you have no center, your opponent has a freer position. If you do have a center, then you really have something to worry about! (If there is a Hall of Fame for quotes, this one belongs there. But who actually said it? Unclear.)
Always put the rook behind the pawn...except when it is incorrect to do so. [Soltis, Andy (2003), Grandmaster Secrets: Endings, Thinker's Press] (Edward Winter casts doubt on this. Soltis was famous for fun, semi-plausible embellishments.]
Many have become chess masters - no one has become the master of chess. Chess Quotes - Chess (They cite no parent source.)
Whenever you have to make a rook move, and both rooks are available for said move, you should evaluate which rook to move and, once you have made up your mind, move the other one. (Multiple players are credited with this one, incl. Panno.)
The player that takes risks may lose, the player that doesn't always loses. (It's either a quote by Tarrasch...or a Trash Quote. Or perhaps by Tartakower, as I've found the quote attributed to him as well. So confusing.)
Every move creates a weakness. Chess Quotes - Strategy (They cite no parent source.)
I would hope some sharp-eyed critic out there would ask this critical question: What criteria did I use to determine who made the QM Top Ten List and who didn't? You asked for it, you got it! Right here, and right now.
| #1 | Gut feel. Darned if what they said doesn't resonate somewhere in my chess soul. |
| #2 | Must have ten quotable quotes that I could find without too much painful research on my part. |
| #3 | It must have been written or translated into English. I leave it to others to manage their linguistic chess QMs. |
| #4 | If it's a full paragraph...it isn't a quote. |
| #5 |
If it made me laugh, it's probably a winner. |
| #6 | If it made me laugh and cry it's almost definitely a winner. |
| #7 | If it seemed glaringly obvious, I tried to consider when it was said. Sometimes that works, sometimes...not. |
| #8 | Can I visualize at least one quote? Can I create a picture that captures the essence of a quote? |
For each QM, I will be adding my take on why QM #9 was better than QM #10, and #8 was better than #9, and so forth, with every post. That's found at Why Tarrasch Earned the #3 Spot.
There might be a quote shootout, with five to ten additional quotes, if two QM candidates are evenly matched after their first ten quotes (I guarantee this will be required for the Top Two). This is unlike the 2024 World Blitz CC, and more like a golf tournament with a sudden death playoff. There can be no ties, but if it comes down to a coin flip, a spin of the roulette wheel, a random dart toss, or a roll of the dice to decide, so be it. Ultimately, I wield the scythe that separates and slots the candidates. Tiebreaks will usually occur behind the scenes.
[I did consider posting the quotes from #1 and #2 simultaneously and deciding the winner based on a reader's poll. Not gonna.]
Are there any flaws in your approach?
Heretic!
Sigh, of course there are. For instance, for most of the potential QMs I relied on quotes easily found in the wild, sayings that were gyrating around the meme-verse, t-shirts, and on the lips of players and coaches everywhere and everywhen. However, some of these folks wrote very quotable material, but for some reason their quotes have not spread broadly across the chess echosystem. ("Echosystem" is my second-newest contribution to the Urban Dictionary: @KevinSmithIdiot; echoverse is my most recent entry, comprising a system of echosystems.)
For those whose quotes have not yet infiltrated every nook and cranny of the chess echosystem, I was forced to do page-by-page research of books they had written...though only after first filtering through a List of Chess Notes Feature Articles by Edward Winter that that offered alphabetical access regarding information about chess notables, starting with Alekhine and closing with Zukertort. [After that the site moved on to innumerable other tidbits of interest for any would-be or actual chess historian.]
Okay, what's your point? You did a lot of research, so what?
In my circular way of getting to the point, I found that I turned up a lot of very quotable material going through a book for those whose sayings did not yet appear widely across the chess quote echosystem. I harbor hope these twelve posts will alleviate some of that lack of respect for people who are eminently quotable.
Still, the process left me to ponder whether an in-depth look into only some candidate's published works was an injustice to those who had plenty of quotes already bouncing around the echoverse. Bottom line, I chose not to do a page-by-page of every candidate's works. One, I don't have books by all of them. Two, I don't have an infinite amount of time and energy.
To double down, I'm not going change my approach. As a character said in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, "So it goes."
Why Tarrasch Earned the #3 Spot
A CONFESSION: When I first gathered quotes for all 23 candidates, Tarrasch was credited with a whole series of fabulous quotes. Then, I started noticing a troubling trend. Many of the greatest chess quotes are attributed to multiple masters. That's a problem.
Now I didn't just have to spend time looking through the books of authors whose quotes haven't yet inundated the echoverse, I also needed to check the provenance of repeated quotes. Turns out, Tarrasch may or may not have been the originator of many of my favorite quotes. To keep the playing field level, I eliminated quotes that were attributed to more than one individual. Okay, so what's the problem? Well...I had already sorted the QMs from #1 to #23.
Luckily for me, serendipity was my friend. Anyone who inspired imitators (Trash quotes), collaborationists (Soltis, amongst others), and hatred (Steinitz), must have been making some powerful statements. Throw in the fact that Tarrasch reformulated the notions of pawns constituting the soul of chess (Philidor) while positing the almost spiritual idea that tempo is the soul of chess, and I think I found a worthy candidate for the #3 spot!
To read through Tarrasch's quotes is to peer into his thoughts. Humor, hubris, and joy pop up throughout his sayings. Plus, he's not content to talk just to fellow masters of the game, he also points out the enviable mindset of the patzer who plays for Royal Forks and cheapos, individuals ready to revel in those few moments when the stars align and they are clearly rulers of the board.
Reminder About Reader Questions
Many of these questions will change with every entry in the QM Top Ten posts. But that seems kind of obvious.🤣
| Do you think Tarrasch was a good choice for the number #3 spot? |
| Who do you think will take the number two spot? |
| Who do you think will take the number one spot? |
In the table below I'll track names, if not full responses, for questions two and three.
| Question | Your Votes (last updated 0559 P.M. NYT, 27 Oct 2025) |
| 1 | Yes (3), No (#), Maybe (#) |
| 2 | Lasker (2), Nimzowitsch (1), |
| 4 | Nimzowitsch (2), Znosko-Borovsky (1) |
Short, sweet, surely spellbinding! Well, that's the goal, alongside awful alliterations. Ultimately, if someone besides me reads these, I'll consider the success box checked.😉😎
If you enjoyed this, please come back to see who was ranked #2 and then #1...followed by a special edition with quotes from all the contenders, including those who didn't make my Top Ten, but about whom you might have your own opinions on where they should have fallen.
Cheers!
Kevin
King safety is the mantra of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Initiative is the heartbeat of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Material is the coin of the realm in chess. – KevinChessSmith
Pawn structure provides the skeleton, ligaments, and tendons of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Lines are the oxygen of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Officers, those confounding minor pieces, are the tricksters of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Development is the architecture of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Energy is the forcing function of chess. – KevinChessSmith
Squares are an Achilles heel for those who tread unwarily, even blindly, in chess. – KevinChessSmith
Space is the soul of chess. – KevinChessSmith
There's a rather obvious acrostic in there for those who have read my series on analysis, KIMPLODES! Explosive Analysis Approach--Break it up, baby!
Prior Blogs in the Quote Master Series
ANNOUNCMENT! The Top Ten Chess Quotemasters (QMs)
Chess QuoteMaster #10: GM Andrew Soltis
Chess QuoteMaster #9: GM Rudolf Spielmann
Chess QuoteMaster #8: GM Garry Kasparov
Chess QuoteMasters #7: GM David Bronstein
Chess QuoteMasters #6: IM Jeremy Silman
