Exeter Chess Club

GM Barcza was helping GM Szabo prepare for a candidates' tournament. They were working on a particular line but couldn't figure it all out. Barcza finally said, "It must be tried out! And let the better player win!" Szabo cried out, "That is exactly what I do not want to happen!"

Ask yourself the following question, “Of all the games I have lost recently, what percent were lost because of something I did not know, and what percent were lost due to something I already knew, but were not careful to look for?”

"Flip-Coin Chess: Does not pay attention to all (or sometimes even any!)
of the threats generated by the opponent's previous move.

Hope Chess: Does pay attention to all the threats generated by the
opponent's previous move, but, before making their current move, does
not check to make sure that all checks, captures, and threats by the
opponent on the next move (in reply to that move) can be safely met.

Real Chess: Not only deals with opponent's threats from the previous
move but, before making their move, also makes sure that the opponent

"The essence of chess is thinking about what chess is."

"There are more adventures on a chessboard than on all the seas of the world"

"If drink is the curse of the working classes and work is the curse of the drinking classes then chess is the curse of the thinking classes "

"Chess rules and exercises - 5 hours
Elementary endings - 5 hours
Some openings - 10 hours
Combination - 20 hours
Positional play - 40 hours

"We perceive after a careful consideration of the evolution of the chess mind that such evolution has gone on, in general, in a way quite similar to that in which it goes on with the individual chess player, only with the latter more rapidly."

"A knowledge of tactics is the foundation of positional play. This is a rule which has stood its test in chess history and one which we cannot impress forcibly enough upon the young chess player. A beginner should avoid Queen's Gambit and French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game"

"Nimzovitch became then for me more or less the author of the only book which could help me get away from these Euwe books, which, I admit, are very good for the ordinary club player. But once you've reached a certain strength you get the impression that everything that Euwe writes is a lie."

"...In some places words have been replaced by symbols which, like amulets from a witch's bag, have the power to consume the living spirit of chess. The notorious "!!" can never approximate the human emotions which accompany an "excellent move" or a "great idea".

 ...Oh, those exclamation points! How they erode the innocent soul of the amateur, removing all hope of allowing him to examine another player's ideas critically!"

"The word "combination" means different things to different people."

"... I bid farewell to my readers in the hope that they have formed their own opinion as to the meaning of the word "combination"."

"What distinguishes a Grandmaster from a master? Chess-lovers often ask questions like that. To many people it seems that Grandmasters simply calculate variations a little deeper. Or that they know their opening theory slightly better. But in fact the real difference is something else. You can pick out two essential qualities in which those with higher titles are superior to others: the ability to sense the critical moment in a game, and a finer understanding of various positional problems."

"A lot of the difference between an IM and GM is a seriousness to the game. The GM is willing to go through all this. He's willing to put up with anything. This shows his dedication. One other thing is the GMs superiority in tactics. For example Christiansen can find tactics in any position. If you're a GM you should be able to overpower the IM tactically. The GM will often blow out the IM in this area. "

"At that age (ten), the odd piece here or there often makes little difference. Rather, ingenuity and the will to win may prove decisive."

"Many players, even of a high calibre, will assert, half jokingly and half seriously, that a difficult labour of analysis can be replaced by intuition. 'I played this move in a flash - it was obvious it couldn't be bad' is the sort of thing we often hear in a post-mortem.

"Openings teach you openings. Endgames teach you chess!"

"Chess is 99% tactics"

"The most important feature of the chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game (opening, middlegame and especially endgame). The primary constraint on a piece's activity is the Pawn structure."

"Pawns are born free, yet are everywhere in chains..."

"Only a good bishop can be sacrificed, a bad bishop can only be lost."

"Black is now in desparate need of a good idea. Or, to put it standard chess notation, +-"

"It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan"

"In the eighteenth century they announced their first rule: "Sortez les pieces" - "Get the pieces out". "It took a hundred years before a new rule was announced. Anderssen, the winner of the first International Tournament, that of London, 1851, said:

  "Move that one of your pieces, which is in the worst plight, unless you can satisfy yourself that you can derive immediate advantage by an attack"

 "A few decades went by [...] the masters evolved a "public opinion":

" "There are no hopeless positions;
there are only inferior positions that can be saved.

  There are no drawn positions;
there are only equal ones in which you can play for a win.

  But at the same time, don't forget that there is no such thing as a won position
in which it is impossible to lose."

"I wasn't sure what square to take the rook to. Because there were three alternatives (e8, d8 and c8), I decided to go for the middle one."

"Those chess lovers who ask me how many moves I usually calculate in advance, when making a combination, are always astonished when I reply, quite truthfully, 'as a rule not a single one' "

"The idea comes before the logical argument."

"The technician, whose vocabulary has been doubled by Dr. Euwe, will find that White could have saved his soul by a desperado combination. Had this failure anything to do with the fact that Dr. Euwe's terminology was not yet existent at that time!?"

"It is the aim of the modern school, not to treat every position according to one general law, but according to the principle inherent in the position."

"Many are of the opinion that the Knight on QR4(a5) does not participate fully in the struggle, while others hold that, on the contrary, in view of Black's coming Q-side pawn advance and pressure against White's QB4(c4), his position is quite satisfactory. These debates are futile. The important thing is to see clearly what is positive and what is negative in the position of the Knight, and act accordingly when choosing a strategic plan."

"During a chess competition a chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk."

"Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game. "

"If you have any doubt what to study, study endgames. Openings teach you openings. Endings teach you chess."

"Who is your opponent tonight?"
"Tonight I am playing against the Black pieces"

" Reti studies mathematics although he is not a dry mathematician; represents Vienna without being Viennese; was born in old Hungary yet he does not know Hungarian; speaks uncommonly rapidly only in order to act all the more maturely and deliberately; and will become the best chessplayer without, however, becoming world champion. "

"Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind."

"It has been said

"Have you ever seen a chess article without a brilliant example of the author's own play? 'Silly question,' you will say. Quite."

"Deux fous gagnent toujours, mais trois fous, non!"

"Q: What is the object of playing a gambit opening?
A: To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.

  Q: Account briefly for the popularity of the Queen Pawn Opening in matches of a serious nature.
A: Laziness.

  Q: What is the duty of an umpire where a player wilfully upsets the board?
A: Remove the bottle.

"The captain was a good chess player, and the games with him were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting that they were foolish."

  Here's my entry to this mess:

"Skeletons of mice are often to be found in coconuts, for it is easier to get in, slim and greedy, than to get out, appeased but fat."

"Henry won fo much at Cheffe of Louis the King's eldest fon, as hee growing into Choller, called him the fonne of a Baftard, and threw the cheffe in his face. Henry takes vp the Cheffe-board, and ftrake Louis with that force as drew bloud."

"Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two first-category players knocked pieces off the board as they were exchanged, so that the pieces fell onto the floor.
It was as if they were playing skittles and not chess!"

"Never go in against a Sicilian when *death* is on the line!"

"After black's reply to 1.e4 with 1..e5 leaves him always trying to get into the game"

All openings are sound below master level.
[LOMBARDY?]

Choose an opening... which is sound, regardless of fluctuations in current theory.
[HOROWITZ and REINFIELD, in recommending the Sicilian Dragon(!)]

when I'm white I win because I am white, when I'm black I win because I am Bogulyubov"

"I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings"

"Always deploy," says Franklin K. Young, "so that the right oblique can be readily established in case the objective plane remains open or becomes permanently located on the centre or on the King's wing, or that the crochet aligned may readily be established if the objective plane becomes permanently located otherwise than at the extremity of the strategic front."

  If this is somewhat obscure (and I see no reason to believe otherwise), the conclusion it reaches is stated in limpid prose by the same writer:

"Luzhin, preparing an attack for which it was first necessary to explore a maze of variations, where his every step aroused a perilous echo, begain a long meditation: he needed, it seemed, to make one last prodigious effort and whe would find the secret move leading to victory. Suddenly, something occurred outside his being, a scorching pain - and he let out a loud cry, shaking his hand stung by the flame of a match, which he had lit and forgotten to apply to his cigarette.

"At that time two opposing concepts of the Game called forth commentary and discussion. The foremost players distinguished two principal types of Game, the formal and the psychological."

" A combination composed of a sacrifice has more immediate effect upon the person playing over the game in which it occurs than another combination, because the apparent senselessness of the sacrifice is convincing proof of the design of the player offering it.

This issue's Colemanballs selection:

"Football today, it's like a game of chess. It's all about money."

"THE KING
The King himself is haughtie care,
Which ouerlooketh all his men,
And when he seeth how they fare,
He steps among them now and then,
Whom when his foe presumes to checke,
His seruants stand, to giue the necke.

  THE QUEENE
The Queene is queint, and quicke conceit,
Which makes her walke which way she list,
Ans rootes them up, that lie in wait,
To worke hir treason ere she wist:
Hir force is such against her foes,
That whom she meets, she ouerthrowes...

"There are two classes of men; those who are content to yield to circumstances and who play whist; those who aim to control circumstances, and who play chess."

"She hung up and I set out the chess board. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armour, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency."

"After reading through sections in several different books and playing hundreds of training games with my computer..."