Why you can't understand chess: Top 3 Misunderstood Quotes
There are a lot of chess things that great chess players said. Some of them are straight away amazing and some of them are pretty questionable, but there are some quotes that are just being misunderstood or that are not true at all. And people still believe them!
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Not every chess game played by a grandmaster is good. Not every move made by Magnus Carlsen is brilliant. The same thing is true for quotes: if a great player said something, that doesn't prove its correctness. So today I will share with you 3 popular chess quotes that are not true!
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Hi. My name is Magnus Carlsen Choco!
Magnus Carlsen @ChocoCaramelPawn
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Quotes LIbrary
"Bishops are better than knights!"
"Better accuracy = Better results!"
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Downtown Glow by Ghostrifter Official
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"Chess is 99% Tactics!"
Wait, who said that, seriously? Well, after a bit of searching, I actually found... no one! At all! People appear to mistake that the creator of this phrase is Richard Teichmann, a German chess master known as "Richard the Fifth" for often finishing in fifth place (poor Richard
), but it didn't appear in any of his publications or public conversations! This quote actually came from another quote in a chess book about tactics:
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...the great master and teacher Teichmann explained to me years ago: “To 99% chess consists of tactics”.
Erwin Voellmy (his student)
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And you should really blame Erwin Voellmy for saying this because it seems like he slightly exaggerated and underestimated how popular will his modified quote become. Should I really tell you that is not true?
The length of an average chess game played by humans is 40 moves. Considering that the earliest tactics possible can be achieved on move 2 (1. e4 f5 2. ef +-) that means that the first two moves of the game are not tactics. Then, if hypothetically every other move was tactics, we would get 39 divided 40, or exactly 97.5% which mathematically proves this quote wrong.
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Here's a thing: this is a good quote and I like it, but some people just take it too seriously and that is the point of this blog: to show what people actually wanted to say by using these quotes.
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Conclusion
Tactics are very important and they make a lot of impact on some very important matches like FIDE World Championship 2023 and FIDE World Championship 2024. And it is so fascinating that even in the game, played by super GMs there is room for beauty like this!
If nobody made mistakes in a chess game, tactics wouldn't exist. But players are not computers, so unless the world forgets about chess, we will always be able to discover new sacrifices played by grandmasters, champions and unknown players.
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Chess is not 99% tactics, but tactics make a lot of impact in a chess game on any level.
@ChocoCaramelPawn
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"Bishops are better than knights!"
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This opinion is popularized by Garry Kasparov, and it is safe to say that for the past years, it has become a quote. This one little phrase divided the chess kingdom into two parts: horsey-lovers and bishop-admirals.
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Go to any chess forum, google any question related to knights and bishops and you will see debates that boil in statements, tests and emotional damage (to people who actually spend hours of their time on the internet proving that one piece in the game is better than another😵)
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- Bishop controls more squares than a knight!
- But knights can jump over pieces!
- Two bishops and a king can deliver a checkmate but two knights can't!
- But bishops are colorblind but knights are not!
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Debates like these can go on forever, simply because there are no correct or wrong answers to this question. For example, what is stronger: a piece of paper or a rock? You might answer paper since it will cover the rock, but we don't know how big the rock is. Then you can say that the rock is stronger: it is more durable than a piece of paper. But we don't know how damaged this rock is!
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So why not look at a specific position and try to answer this question? Let's have a look at this position over here made by me:
This seems like a really complicated position: both the white bishop and black knight can be repositioned to a better location. For example, white can play king e1 and bishop to f1, attacking the pawn on b5. But black will be just in time to defend it with their king! Black can try to play pawn to c5 so they can free their knight, but white's king is just in time to block the "c" pawn! So, who is better in this position?
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But how is it possible to archive a win? It is time to reveal the beauty:
Yes, that's right: white had to show demolishing accuracy by making 4 brilliant moves to open up position and win the game! So? in this case, the bishop wins in a tough fight.
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Conclusion
The position that we saw was really interesting and complicated, showing great ways how the bishop can outplay the knight, and how the knight can outplay the bishop. And we only analyzed one position - we have a lot more to go! But we can already learn our lesson:
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Bishops and knights are powerful in their own ways and comparing their strength without context is an empty topic.
@ChocoCaramelPawn
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"Better accuracy means better results!"
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This might not be a quote, but it is the biggest misconception I have ever heard. With Chess.com being advertised as a chess platform where you can improve and learn from your mistakes by reviewing your games, people started relying on their game accuracy report a little too much...
At this point, some people think that they have to get "at least 95% accuracy". That is so unrealistic! However, there is a difference between computer evaluation and human evaluation. Let's have a look at this position:
Looks like a normal position, and black needs to move their knight to a safe square. Now, I have a question for you: where would you move your knight?
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Did you find the right move for the first time? If you didn't, you actually passed the test. The best move according to the computer is sometimes not the best move according to humans. In this case, you will get a hard-to-play position with the hope of getting a draw in case you played everything right afterward:
After a sequence of 20 hard-to-find chess moves from both sides, black ended up in a situation with a free pawn... but stockfish evaluation says that this position is a draw. All of these moves are just for a draw! If you found these moves in a real chess tournament people would call you a cheater!
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Conclusion
The funny thing is... every other move would give a drawish position but easier! And the only reason why Knight e7 is the best move is because... it is 0.2 points better than almost every other knight move. For a computer knight to e7 will be the best move, but it absolutely won't be the best for a human!
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Computer accuracy isn't accurate for a human
@ChocoCaramelPawn
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P.S. I hope you enjoyed this adventure! Comment down below, if you agree with me or not!
