David Bronstein Quotes

The most powerful weapon in Chess is to have the next move

In chess, as in life, opportunity strikes but once.

To lose one's objective attitude to a position, nearly always means ruining your game.

A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge; it is a battle of nerves.

If you have made a mistake or committed an inaccuracy there is no need to become annoyed and to think that everything is lost. You have to reorientate yourself quickly and find a new plan in the new situation.

Even in the heat of a middlegame battle the master still has to bear in mind the outlines of a possible future ending.

When everything on the board is clear it can be so difficult to conceal your thoughts from your opponent.

A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince yourself that your intuition has not deceived you.

Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one's opponent's wildest dreams will become reality.

The essence of Chess is thinking about what Chess is.

Chess is imagination.

It is no secret that any talented player must in his soul be an artist, and what could be dearer to his heart and soul than the victory of the subtle forces of reason over crude material strength! Probably everyone has his own reason for liking the King`s Gambit, but my love for it can be seen in precisely those terms.

Theory regards this opening as incorrect, but it is impossible to agree with this. Out of the five tournament games played by me with the King's Gambit, I have won all five.

Far from all of the obvious moves that go without saying are correct.

Independence of thought is a most valuable quality in a chess-player, both at the board and when preparing for a game.

When you play against an experienced opponent who exploits all the defensive resources at his command you sometimes have to walk time and again, along the narrow path of 'the only move'.

What the devil possessed me to reply 1. ... e5?? I compltely forgot that Spassky, like Spielmann in the past, very much likes to play the King's Gambit.

Sometimes at lectures I am asked: how would the champions of the last century play today? I think that, after making a hurried study of modern openings, and watching one or two tournaments, the champions of the last century, and indeed the century before that, would very quickly occupy the same place that they occupied when they were alive.

Nowadays grandmasters no longer study their opponent's games so much, but they study his character, his behaviour and his temperament in the most thorough fashion.

But whatever you might say and whatever I might say, a machine which can play chess with people is one of the most marvellous wonders of our 20th century!

In the middlegame one should not hesitate to advance a central passed pawn.

Two passed pawns advancing on the enemy pieces have brought me more than a dozen points in tournaments.

There is no disputing that in the eyes of Schlechter, Teichmann or even Rubinstein, the backward pawn was something more substantial than lively piece play, but in our day the latter is more often preferred.

Some pieces in the King's Indian appear on a 'special price' list: the dark square bishops are at the top of that list.

It is annoying that the rules of chess do not allow a pawn to take either horizontally or backwards, but only forwards ... This psychological tuning is ideal for attacking purposes, but what about for defence?