Pawns not only create the sketch for the whole painting, they are also the soil, the foundation, of any position
Chess is everything: art, science, and sport.
Blunders rarely travel alone.
To be champion requires more than simply being a strong player; one has to be a strong human being as well.
Happiness should always remain a bit incomplete. After all, dreams are boundless.
By all means examine the games of the great chess players, but don't swallow them whole. Their games are valuable not for their separate moves, but for their vision of chess, their way of thinking.
It is dangerous to maintain equality at the cost of placing the pieces passively.
The ideal in chess can only be a collective image, but in my opinion it is Capablanca who most closely approaches this.
I don't pretend to anything more than harmony.
You can't play chess if you're groggy from pills.
Just make the right estimation of your own strengths and weaknesses, and also that of your opponent.
Chess is a very tough game, and psychologically a tough game. And of course chess needs a lot of qualities, human qualities. And so you must have very strong nervous system and then you must be well prepared, you must be able to work a lot.
I still remember Botvinnik's reaction to each of my games, right from the opening moves. At first he would express amazement, then annoyance, and, finally irritation.
Style, I've got no style.
I lost the match. I blame only myself for this. There were many opportunities to win. But I missed them, no one else.
Chess is my life, but my life is not chess.
If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.
The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant coaches.
The fact that a knight is temporarily on the edge of the board is of no great significance.
Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.
Combinations with a queen sacrifice are among the most striking and memorable.
I like to do projects in which you can see statistical results. I am very happy for all these small children, who have been the biggest group of victims of iodine deficiency.
It doesn't require much for misfortune to strike in the King's Gambit - one incautious move, and Black can be on the edge of the abyss.
I like 1.e4 very much, but my results are better with 1.d4.
But how difficult it can be to gain the desired full point against an opponent of inferior strength, when this is demanded by the tournament position!
