Quotes About Chess

I will say there have been occasional times - not when I'm playing, but when I'm studying - that I have found a little bit of alcohol has been good for the creative process.

I think a gentleman is someone who holds the comfort of other people above their own. The instinct to do that is inside every good man, I believe. The rules about opening doors and buying dinner and all of that other 'gentleman' stuff is a chess game, especially these days.

Crossword puzzles, Sudoku... I'm good at all those things. It's not daily, but I'll do stuff on the airplane. I love playing chess. It's my favorite game.

I don't like to show my emotions at the board, not because they might give something away to an opponent, but because that's my style: I like to keep it to myself.

You see, in chess we have styles - like in any other field. There are also fashions in the kinds of systems that people play. So I'm trying to know my opponent as much as possible.

I was reasonably interested in mathematics in school. Typically what happens is... when you start playing chess, it takes up a lot of your attention. But about 10 years ago, I found that the Internet is very good to start learning about a lot of subjects.

There are two different kinds of spectacular fighters. One is a subtle counter puncher who shows the work like chess. It's kind of an art, sports art. The other kind is when a guy has blood on all his body. That's a second kind of spectacular fighter, and people enjoy both. Both kind of fighters need to be respected.

There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys.

Bobby Fischer, the great chess champion, once said, "Winning in this game is all a matter of understanding how to capitalize on the strengths of each piece and timing their moves just right.

The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic.

In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this.

The best way to learn endings, as well as openings, is from the games of the masters.

In any match, there are few critical moments where there's no second best decision. The rest of the moves are intuitive.

Mathematics is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst.

As a kid, chess was the first thing I studied in a structured way that helped me gain the discipline to study medicine and become successful doctor.

The strategist is a chess player thrown into life.

I'm a tin princess. Like chess: I come all the way across the board and turned into a queen, Still only tin, though.

Not randomly, though. Farder Coram was a chess player, and he knew how chess players looked at a game in play. An expert player seemed to see lines of force and influence on the board, and looked along the important lines and ignored the weak ones; and Lyra's eyes moved the same way, according to some similar magnetic field that she could see and he couldn't.

Adelaide played statecraft with all the guile and passion that she put into her other games, and Becky began to realize that perhaps she had been preparing for this with every throw of the dice, every move of a chess piece.

Tax Law is like the world's biggest chess game with all sorts of weird conundrums about ethics and civics and consent of the governed built in. For me, it's a bit like math. I have no talent for it but find it still erotically interesting.

No single move traps the king.

If either player abandon the game by quitting the table in anger, or in an otherwise offensive manner or by momentarily resigning the game or refuses to abide by the decision of the Umpire, the game must be scored against him.

I've been in prison, you see. Only three weeks, and only on remand,but when you've had to play chess twice a day with a monosyllabic West Ham supporter, who has 'HATE' tattooed on one hand, and 'HATE' on the other - using a set missing six pawns, all the rooks and two of the bishops - you find yourself cherishing little things in life. Like not being in prison.

I've been in prison, you see. Only three weeks, and only on remand, but when you've had to play chess twice a day with a monosyllabic West Ham supporter, who has 'HATE' tattooed on one hand, and 'HATE' on the other - using a set missing six pawns, all the rooks and two of the bishops - you find yourself cherishing the little things in life. Like not being in prison.