One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent
What is your favorite chess quote of all time?
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A breakthrough in the center is always the start of an attack ... this is why voluntarily conceding the opponent a mobile pawn center, or perhaps only a single pawn in the center that is capable of advancing, is equivalent to voluntarily entering the lion's cage. - Mikhail Tal
Sep 14, 2016
0
#85
_Number_6 wrote:
Apotek wrote:
"It is always better to sacrifice your opponent's pieces",Tartakower
And every other quote by Tartakower is also my favorite,
"What is the referee's duty when one of the players upsets the board? Remove the bottle." - Tartakover
"1 e4
One of the best moves on the board!"
- Irving Chernev
Sep 15, 2016
0
#87
A triple pawn is like Trump and Hillary - they'll never make it to the end.
-Yours Truly
Sep 15, 2016
0
#89
My wife: "Would it kill you not to play chess every day?" Reply: "Why take that risk?"
Smokering26 wrote:
My wife: "Would it kill you not to play chess every day?" Reply: "Why take that risk?"
Love it!
I like the story of Capablance sitting outside the Cafe Regence in Paris, board set up, waiting for anybody who wanted to to play. A chap strolled past and suggested a game against the world champion who accepted and offered the chair opposite. Before they began to play Capablanca took his queen off the board. His opponent, not knowing who he was against, protested strongly at the perceived arrogance of the great man. He said, "Sir, how dare you remove your queen, you don't know me, I could beat you!" To which our hero replied, "Sir, if you could beat me I would know you."
Sep 16, 2016
0
#92
Several:
"If you play the Caro-Kann while you are young, what will you play when you are old?" Bent Larsen
"Better is to play 1...c5 and win a pawn." Bent Larsen after having played 1...c6 against Ken Smith (as in Smith-Morra) in San Antonio 1972
"Tactics are the servants of strategy." Botvinnik
"Hard work IS a talent." Kasparov
This is a exchange between Jen Shahade and Alexander Shabalov
"JS: What percentage of the game do you concentrate? AS: Well...I think about girls maybe 50 to 75 percent of the game... I devote another 15 percent to time management, and a few percent to calculation. JS: Is that typical? AS: Absolutely. JS: Fifty to 75 percent is a wide margin to think about girls... which is it? AS: Well, you can tell pretty easily by the quality of the games... 50 percent is great chess. Seventy-five percent is still ok, but where it gets really dangerous is when it creeps up to 90 percent."
"If you play the Caro-Kann while you are young, what will you play when you are old?" Bent Larsen
"Better is to play 1...c5 and win a pawn." Bent Larsen after having played 1...c6 against Ken Smith (as in Smith-Morra) in San Antonio 1972
"Tactics are the servants of strategy." Botvinnik
"Hard work IS a talent." Kasparov
This is a exchange between Jen Shahade and Alexander Shabalov
"JS: What percentage of the game do you concentrate? AS: Well...I think about girls maybe 50 to 75 percent of the game... I devote another 15 percent to time management, and a few percent to calculation. JS: Is that typical? AS: Absolutely. JS: Fifty to 75 percent is a wide margin to think about girls... which is it? AS: Well, you can tell pretty easily by the quality of the games... 50 percent is great chess. Seventy-five percent is still ok, but where it gets really dangerous is when it creeps up to 90 percent."
Oct 18, 2016
0
#93
Can't remember who said it (I've got to start noting these down!)....before any pieces moved at the start of a game..."umm, a very complicated position"
Oct 18, 2016
0
#94
LennyF53 wrote:
Can't remember who said it (I've got to start noting these down!)....before any pieces moved at the start of a game..."umm, a very complicated position"
Look to Edward Winter for the answer, who is scrupulous about his facts. "A complicated position" appeared in Reti's Modern Ideas in Chess just before the author quoted another hypermodern, Gyula Breyer, regarding the move 1.e4.
"You want my King, you need to come get my King. Your queen is just a pawn with a lot of fancy moves."
Oct 19, 2016
0
#96
"If Tartakower played as brilliantly as he spoke the question of greatest player ever would never be in dispute" - Me 
Oct 19, 2016
0
#97
"I may yet be forced to admit the Winawer is sound. But i doubt it! It is anti-positional and weakens the kingside"
- Robert J Fischer (Biggest A-Hole of all chess players ever - the "Donald Trump" of chess players!)
I always liked Why must i lose to this idiot? i think it was Nimzovich that said this but i am not sure.
Chess, more than a game and less than a science.
- SkyMarshal -
Oct 19, 2016
0
#100
"I am done with chess, but chess is not done with me" - author unknown. Try going to sleep when you have finished your last tournament game of the day with a loss, when you had the advantage all the way until the very last. Why didn't I go into a winning endgame?...Why didn't I trade queens when I had the chance?...why didn't I realize his doubled pawns were an advantage, not a disadvantage?...and on and on as you toss and turn and replay the game in your head.
"I am done with chess, but chess is not done with me".
That was Savielly Tartakower, one of the great chess epigrammatists.
The quote of his I've never been able to fine again went along the lines of:
"He was doing alright until he started thinking for himself."
I've haven't read that one before, but how about this Tartakowerism?
A game of chess has three phases: the opening, where you hope you stand better; the middlegame, where you think you stand better; and the ending, where you know you stand to lose.
Humorous, but you have to love the truth of it.