“I venture to say (and this opinion has forty years of research behind it) that the queen’s pawn openings have contributed as many masterpieces and as many genuine brilliancies as did any of the kingside openings.”-- Irving Chernev, “Logical Chess: Move by Move ( Read more... )

Having come across Mr. Tartakower in my chess reading, I looked him up and saw a number of good quotes from him at his Wikipeia page, and I am going to keep some of them.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<"Tactics is what you do when there is something to do; strategy is what you do when there is nothing to do ( Read more... )

"An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard."

-- Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)

[Source: Irving Chernev, "Logical Chess: Move by Move"]

“In chess you may hit a man when he’s down.”

-- Irving Chernev, “Logical Chess: Move by Move”

This is for the Przepiorka-Prokes (1929) game. What names, right? Przepiorka is hammering away at Prokes’s defending knight against certain apocalypse, bringing piece after piece against it.

“As Rousseau could not compose without his cat beside him, so I without my king’s bishop cannot play chess. In its absence the game to me is lifeless and cold. The vitalizing factor is missing, and I can devise no plan of attack.”-- Siegbert Tarrasch ( Read more... )

“In the beginning of the game ignore the search for combinations, abstain from violent moves. Aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having attained these ends search for the combination - and then with all the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must exist, however deeply hidden.”

-- Emanuel Lasker

[ ( Read more... )

“Of Chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it. But that is the fault of life, not Chess.”

-- William Ewart Napier

( Memorable game against Lasker )

“You cannot play at chess if you are kind-hearted.”

-- French proverb

In the Spielmann-Wahle (1926) game, Spielmann has just castled King-side and is ready to bring out his Queen’s rook. Chernev speaks favorably.

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“Chess is not for timid souls.”

-- Steinitz, letter to Bachmann

[Source: Irving Chernev, “Logical Chess: Move by Move”]