I enjoy it when I see my opponent really suffering when he knows that I’ve outsmarted him- Magnus Carlsen, 2012
“Chess is the struggle against the error.”- Johannes Zukertort
Everything is very concrete nowadays. The computer often gives unnatural moves which are correct, but sometimes hard to remember. You know a line is correct, but then your forget something and lose terribly.- Daniel Stellwagen, 2010
I have often written that Karpov is like an iceberg. Well, Kasparov was the Titanic.- Alexander Roshal
Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for.- Hans Ree
Some twenty years ago an English journalist complained that in sports, only chess and marbles were above suspicion. One wonders what has happened in the world of marbles.- Hans Ree
When I am in the USSR, I have the feeling that every tram conductor plays chess better than I do.- Hans Ree
Chess is a game by its form, an art by its content and a science by the difficulty of gaining mastery in it. Chess can convey as much happiness as a good book or work of music can. However, it is necessary to learn to play well and only afterwards will one experience real delight.- Tigran Petrosian
The Golden Age, when machines were weak and my hair was strong!- Garry Kasparov, 2017
I believe that every world champion has a greatness of his own.- Kiril Georgiev, 2017
What’s been bothering me is not that I haven’t won tournaments, but that I haven’t played very well.- Magnus Carlsen, 2017
I thank the Lord for not pairing me with Black against Magnus Carlsen in the first round.- Nigel Short, 2017
What am I doing in this pool of piranhas?- Nigel Short, 2017
Never felt more like singin’ the blues, cos I never thought that I’d ever lose…- Vladimir Kramnik 2017
The game of chess is turning out to be much richer than we knew-you can’t reduce it to the simple rules- Vishy Anand, 2017
When I play well, I don’t win!- Maxime Vachier Lagrave, 2017
Karpov Lost, Kasparov Lost, the Only One Who Remained Is Me …- Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, 2014
Politics is a team game, here it is necessary to compromise, to take into account the views of other people. As for Garry, he is quite a contentious, totalitarian person. But in general, I’m sorry that Kasparov switched to a role that does not match the scale of his personality.- Vladimir Kramnik, 2015
Man has no chance to win against the modern computer. And, by and large, a confrontation between two individuals is more interesting.- Vladimir Kramnik, 2015
In addition to talent, Magnus has the health of a racehorse and a powerful nervous system.- Vladimir Kramnik, 2015
Thank the stars that I have been banned by FIDE so it is very clear I have nothing to do with this mess…- Garry Kasparov, 2015
In chess,honestly,nobody cares how beautiful you play,if Morphy would be 2710 today,he would not get a single invitation.- Teymur Rajabov, 2017
Magnus is playing fantastic and I play like I always play, pretty badly- Anish Giri, 2017
Carlsen is a combination of Karpov and Fischer style.- Garry Kasparov, 2017
Carlsen: “I ran out of steam towards the end but fortunately I played better than he did”- Magnus Carlsen, 2017
Looks like I’m going to raise the average age of the field and lower the average rating!- Garry Kasparov , 2017
A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused.- Rudolf Spielmann
In one game it is too difficult to play both for win and draw simultaneously.- Mihail Tal, 1969
If the FIDe elections were not decided by the votes of the delegates but by the world’s chess society as a whole, there would not even be a competition.- Anatoly Karpov, NIC 2010
Chess politic is not my dream, but I will be happy when we start to change things and organize a better chess life in the world.- Anatoly Karpov, 2010
We will note the openings used by the participants of a nine-round match. The age of openings is considerably higher than the age of both rivals. Some opening positions could be analyzed by Steinitz when he was preparing to his match with Zukertort.- Mikhail Tal , 1966 (Petrosian-Spassky match)
Petrosian-Spassky? To think I could have watched an excellent football match instead!- Mikhail Tal, 1966
After an upsetting defeat the best psychology for the next game is a placid draw- Dr. Vidmar
Petrosian would never have beaten me if he had played like that in 1963.- Mikhail Botvinnik, 1966
16. “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.- Anatoly Karpov
When your house is on fire, you can’t be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in chess, if your King is under attack, don’t worry about losing a pawn on the queenside.- Garry Kasparov
We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn once and for all the formula “chess for the sake of chess”, like the formula “art for art’s sake”. We must organize shock brigades of chess-players, and begin immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess.- Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko
Not this time, Mr. Carlsen! (after winning the World Blitz Championship 2016)- Sergey Karjakin, 2016
Carlsen simply plays chess well. It seems to me that in such cases people are inclined to look for some supernatural explanation, although the simplest explanation is also the most appropriate: the guy simply plays chess well.- Alexander Grischuk, 2014
I’ve got no regrets about the games themselves, as frankly I’ve never been narcissistic about my play.- Alexander Grischuk, 2014
Chess should not become an obsession. Otherwise there’s a danger that you will slide off into a parallel world, that you lose your sense of reality, get lost in the infinite cosmos of the game. You become crazy.- Magnus Carlsen, 2010
One of the most important things in chess is pattern recognition: the ability to recognise typical themes and images on the board, characteristics of a position and their consequences.- Magnus Carlsen, 2010
I am a totally normal guy. My father is considerably more intelligent than I am.- Magnus Carlsen, 2010
Carlsen will sooner or later become World Champion. I like him, he is a Monty Python fan, just like me.- Vishy Anand, 2008
Fischer wanted to prove that all world championship games after his victory were prearranged. He did not convince me.- Vishy Anand, 2008
Ten years ago I said that 2010 would be the end, chess would be exhausted. But it is not true, chess will not die so quickly.- Vishy Anand, 2008
Preparation for a world championship was always an arms race, in previous times with books, then with seconds, today with computers.- Vishy Anand, 2008
In the past twenty years Kramnik has played a few thousand games, and if you show me a position from one of them, in 90 percent of the time I will be able to tell you which game it is from.- Vishy Anand, 2008
It’s always more difficult to hold the title than to get it.- Vladimir Akopian, 2012
First of all, I am a mother, and only then a chessplayer- Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, 2009
The competition in the men’s tournament has grown massively over the past 20 years. Chess is becoming more and more popular, and there are no weak teams in the tournament any longer.- Andrey Filatov
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.- Savielly Tartakower
Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders.- Savielly Tartakower
Tactics is what you do when there is something to do; strategy is what you do when there is nothing to do.- Savielly Tartakower
The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.- Savielly Tartakower
The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made.- Savielly Tartakower
It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men- Savielly Tartakower
Sport can make girls feel more stronger, more stable and you can fight in the future when you enter the society. It is a really good quality for a girl and I think sports are a good way to generate your personality which is really important.- Hou Yifan, 2016
It is true, in chess so far that men and women cannot be on the same level from an economic situation, but there can always be a more reasonable way to combine the financial part and the players’ situation.- Hou Yifan, 2016
The main thing is that you’ve got to keep on studying however old you are. You can’t just rely on your capital, so you have to try and keep up, and that is a difficult task.- Nigel Short, 2016
I think that ACP is a small clique, which gives power to more cliques.- Nigel Short, 2016
I don’t particularly like being searched electronically. It is inconceivable that such a thing would happen in any other sport. It is fundamentally anti-chess, and I think the people who are behind this decision need their heads looked at! They are sick! They are ruining the very beauty that is chess.- Nigel Short, 2016
After losing a game I play the next one better. After losing the 2nd game I play like a lion. After 3 defeats in a row, anyone can beat me!- Eduard Gufeld
When I see the Berlin defence, I am almost happy that I am not longer a top player!- Nigel Short, 2016
When I saw MVL’s position, it is like a football match where you’re 3:0 down, with two minutes to go and you’re down to 10 men!- Lev Aronian , 2016
Chess is a scientific game and its literature ought to be placed on the basis of the strictest truthfulness, which is the foundation of all scientific research.- W. Steinitz
He has weaknesses, as everyone does, but far fewer than those around him.- Veselin Topalov, 2016
There was a moment at the beginning when the machines were a positive, but lately we’ve being passing to the other extreme. Now it seems that a move isn’t good unless the machine says so.- Veselin Topalov, 2016
I think the players in this world championship are in different leagues. Karjakin is excellent—Carlsen is special.- Garry Kasparov, 2016
it would have been a debacle if Karjakin had become the 17th World Champion.- Garry Kasparov, 2016
If the 12th game (from the match Carlsen-Karjakin)… were a restaurant dish, I would send it back to the chef.- Nigel Short 2016
I will be World Champion, if not now I will be World Champion later, but of course better now!- Sergey Karjakin, 2016
When I am White I win because I am White. When I am Black I win because I am Bogoljubov.- Efim Bogoljubov
Maybe I had something of Capablanca. Why should I prepare when I have ideas?- Svetozar Gligoric, 1989 NIC
Now, at 51, in my life I have reach the stage between the middlegame and the endgame. But I don’t have the feeling that I am in the endgame already.- Boris Spassky, 1988 NIC
I never make mistakes in chess, I only have hallucinations!- Vlastimil Hort, 1987
Fischer was the first to send me a telegram when I was in Amsterdam after I had defected, saying ‘Congratulations on the correct move’.- Vikor Kortchnoi , 1986 NIC
My chess method is without formulas, without orthodox thinking. I always explain that chess is an art and that there are no definite judgments.- Lev Polugaevsky, 1990 NIC
I think that the World Champion should try to defend the quality of play more than anyone else!- Boris Spassky
If I’m thinking for more than 20 minutes about one move, it’s usually a waste. Sometimes you can come up with some amazing solution but most of the time you just end up looping: you consider a move, you reject it, then you’re desperate, you come back to the move, you don’t remember why you rejected it, you have to make a move so you make it – then your opponent replies and you remember why you rejected it. The longest wait I ever did between moves was one hour and five minutes – and the move was horrible.- Magnus Carlsen, 2016
Good players actually use their long-term memory much more than inexperienced players, who use their short-term memory. Good players try to recall patterns.- Magnus Carlsen 2016, 2016
You can’t look too annoyed or they’ll look for the mistake you’ve made. A lot of the time it’s about looking for these opportunities and if you give them a clue, the good players will find it.- Magnus Carlsen, 2016
I was pushed out of USSR by the hands of Petrosian and Karpov. But now, after 10 years, Petrosian is not longer alive and Karpov is not longer World Champion, so it seems that everything is in place now.- Viktor Kortchnoi, 1986 NIC
Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they’re going to know the truth when I do this book!- Robert Fischer, September, 1 1992
I am the best player in the world, and I am here to prove it.- Robert Fischer, 1971
Botvinnik and Tal are among the best; I also like Spassky, but I think Petrosian is better than all of them. His weakness is too many draws, even against players he could beat easily. Maybe he lacks self-confidence.- Robert Fischer, 1960
Who was the greatest chess player? If chess is an art, Alekhine. If chess is a science, Capablanca. If chess is a struggle, Lasker.- Saviely Tartakower
Parapsychology? That’s a bunch of bananas. Korchnoi believes in that. He is still playing his game with the ghost of Geza Maroczy.- Nathan Divinsky, 2004
Kasparov’s book are the best, as far as high level analyses are concerned.- Jan Timman, 1991 NIC
My style is based on giving energy and creating. Karpov’s style is something that is probably taking energy from his opponent. NIC 1989- Garry Kasparov, 1989 NIC
The duty of a World Champion is not only to play games but also to explain to the public why he is winning- Garry Kasparov, NIC 1989
I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess. Others give only 2 percent!- Robert Fischer
Karpov is the official World Champion, but I’m not sure what that really means.- Jan Timman, 1993
For goodness’ sake, how could Kasparov, after all his matches against Karpov, support him in the FIDE President elections? What sort of unprincipled person do you have to be? I would never understand that.- Viktor Korchnoi, 2012
Botvinnik, Korchnoi and Kasparov had to hate the opponent to play successfully. I belong to a different type of chess players. I’m like Keres, Spassky and Portisch. On the board we fight, but in life we get along great.- Anatoly Karpov, 2015
This one hour allows me to put the problem into the background and then, when I come back, I am much more rational and less emotional about the particular problem and I can think better about it.- G. Borg, 2016
I still think people can learn at any age – I’m actually sure about that. It’s just that the ceiling is lower for how far you want to go.- Magnus Carlsen, 2016
When you see a good move, look for a better one- Emanuel Lasker
It is not possible to become a great player without having learned how to analyse deeply and accurately.- Mark Dvoretsky
As a rule, pawn endings have a forced character, and they can be worked out conclusively.- Mark Dvoretsky
Chess…gives students an opportunity to think at a different level.- Dr. Chad Witherspoon, 2014
Chess is respected in culture and education, but our organization is far behind. FIDE must lead, not drag chess down.- Garry Kasparov, 2014
I am fighting for the future of chess, for the integrity of the game I love. Only when it’s clean it can grow.- Garry Kasparov, 2014
I’ve been playing chess professionally for 35 years! It’s a long time, and when people can still say that they enjoy my chess, that’s great.- Nigel Short, 2016
I think I like chess. That’s the main reason that I’m able to play at a reasonably high level – that I really love chess. Always have and always will (smiles). It’s the best game in the world!- Nigel Short, 2016
I understood that through chess I could express myself and chess became my natural language.- Boris Spassky, 1995
Kasparov is great as a chess player, but all his attempts to prove himself as an organizer – let’s say, is beyond the champion’s level.- Boris Gelfand , 2016
Karpov Lost, Kasparov Lost, the Only One Who Remained Is Me.- Silvio Danailov, 2014