Jose Raul Capablanca Quotes - Page 2

As one by one I mowed them down, my superiority soon became apparent

Morphy gained most of his wins by playing directly and simply, and it is simple and logical method that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is considered from the viewpoint of the great masters.

The game might be divided into three parts, the opening, the middle-game and the end-game. There is one thing you must strive for, to be equally efficient in the three parts.

Chess can never reach its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into a battle of ideas.

I have not given any drawn or lost games, because I thought them inadequate to the purpose of the book.

The weaker the player the more terrible the Knight is to him, but as a player increases in strength the value of the Bishop becomes more evident to him, and of course there is, or should be, a corresponding decease in his estimation of the value of the Knight as compared to the bishop.

Although the Knight is generally considered to be on a par with the Bishop in strength, the latter piece is somehat stronger in the majority of cases in which they are opposed to each other.

During the course of many years I have observed that a great number of doctors, lawyers, and important businessmen make a habit of visiting a chess club during the late afternoon or evening to relax and find relief from the preoccupations of their work.

Endings of one rook and pawns are about the most common sort of endings arising on the chess board. Yet though they do occur so often, few have mastered them thoroughly. They are often of a very difficult nature, and sometimes while apparently very simple they are in reality extremely intricate.

An exception was made with respect to me, because of my victory over Marshall. Some of the masters objected to my entry ... one of them was Dr. Bernstein. I had the good fortune to play him in the first round., and beat him in such fashion as to obtain the Rothschild prize for the most brilliant game ... a profound feeling of respect for my ability remained throughout the rest of the contest.

Alekhine evidently possesses the most remarkable chess memory that has ever existed. It is said that he remembers by heart all the games played by the leading masters during the last 15-20 years.

To my way of thinking, Troitzky has no peer among endgame compsers; no one else has composed so many and such varied endings of the first rank.

It was Steinitz who was the first to establish the basic principles of general chess strategy. He was a pioneer and one of the most profound researchers into the thruth of the game, which was hidden from his contemporaries.

No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by many masters, as has Emanuel Lasker.