Best piece of chess wisdom that made you a better player

i think it was lasker

I find Silman's advice to "always assume your opponent will make the best move" to be extremely valuable. If they don't make the best move you'll find that your plan falls into place with less resistance. This advice is really just another way of saying "never underestimate your opponent".

Great advice, and probably the one true chess maxim.  I take it to mean that you too should always make the best move -- if there's an inferior move that wins in almost every variation save for one in which it is completely refuted then you should not choose that move however tempting becuase you must assume that your opponent will see the refutation.

I'm also quite fond of this advice:

“When you find a good move, look for a better one!“ - Emanuel Lasker

Well said! I'm glad somebody else out here knows what Caltrop Coefficients are! :)

My own interpretation of McGrew's article is "When playing a stronger player OR when you're already losing, you're NO longer trying to find the best move  ... just find the most annoying move that makes your opponent burn his clock trying to make sure his response is safe".  Stronger players always want clear positions to play with when dealing with weaker ones.  I'll be damned if I'll give them clear ones :)

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
-Lasker

I couldn't remember who said it, so I google'd 'chess quotes' and it was the first one that popped up, ha ha.

 Emanuel Lasker said that

"Avoid all book openings.  Force your opponent early on to play chess rather than play from memory.  Then crush said opponent with blunt tactical force." 

My 7 year-old daughter has thrown me for a loop several times with her shoot-from-the-hip wacky openings. Then I have no choice but to pummel her for going against the grain!

@TheGrobe: Nice elaboration on that point. I try to live by that thought process within and outside of chess.

 Hence the "-Lasker".

Well there were "two" chess playing Laskers around that time, if I remember right?

A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused.
Make your first strike very hard, very fast, and very controlled, and most opponents will fear they're beaten already.

Not sure if its made me better yet but it made me think

I'm sure there were quite a few more chess players sharing the last name "Lasker". I never hear anyone talk about someone besides Emanuel, however. So I didn't feel the need to add "Emanuel". Just like how people refer to "Karpov", "Tal" or "Morphy" without listing their first name. Bleh, I'll list the full and complete name in the future.

I've been wrong before, but I'm pretty sure Emanuel's older brother was quite a chess player himself and helped pull Emanuel out of the ivy covered University to play a bit of chess.

Yea everytime somebody says Kasparov, I immediately think of the lesser known chess player Yuri Kasparov.  Ok, so Yuri had a hard time remembering how the pieces moved... and didn't play in many tournaments (or any at all above grade school level)... and didn't have the same passion and fire as Garry had for chess... but seriously... the guy had a heart of gold.  He sat down on his end of the board and immediately meant business.  So yea, first and last names please people, you can never be too specific.  There are probably duplicate names out there too mind you, so please, if you have their social security number at hand please provide that as well.  This will avoid any and all confusion...

Just Do It. -Nike

Whoa, hey, Dexter!  I didn't realize what the contention was.  If you said to me Lasker said such and such, I would know, immediately, to whom you referred.

It's alright Ma!, I'm only checkmated!

Are you a bad troll who does good things, or a good troll who does bad things? *grin. (I should win props from you for that Dexter pun .... love the show!)

There's was an American master Ed Lasker, younger than Dr Lasker but of the same period. If I'm not mistaken he played Em. Lasker in a tournament at one point. Ed Lasker was pretty well known because he wrote a chess manual that for a period was one of the first books learners were recommended. It was really a standard book for a long time, but it's become obsolete now -- Chess Strategy is the name IIRC.

one should never sacrifice anything if one seriously wants to win...paraphrase of Capablanca

its better to sacrifice your opponents pieces...paraphrase of tartakower

its no use to contemplate how to pull a hippo out of a marsh...para Tal

i would rather have a pawn than a finger...Fine

when you blunder look like you did it on purpose...Me