Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

January 3, 2019

Numbers One, Two and Three

Tarjei J. Svensen (tweet) -

Carlsen, at the age of 28, has now been the World #1 for a total of 103 months, surpassing Karpov for the first time (102 months). Only Kasparov is ahead with a total of 255 months as #1.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

December 28, 2018

Getting the chess news

I can remember being thrilled beyond words to have the daily bulletins of the Second Piatigorsky Cup sent to me air mail from Santa Monica, so that I could have the score of Spassky-Fischer two days after it was played. That was in 1966.

But that was then and this is now:

Magnus Carlsen is in St. Petersburg playing in the World Rapid and Blitz Championships and Malcolm Pein tweeted this the other day:

Malcolm Pein @TelegraphChess - So I get to my hotel in Tenerife, order a drink, sit down and the guy next to me is looking at his phone yup it’s Magnus’s game on Sesse and he’s listening to NRK #WRBC2018@TarjeiJS#norwegianseverywhere


(Sesse = Norwegian supercomputer)
(NRK = Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

December 26, 2018

Grandmaster Ratmir Kholmov (1925 – 2006), speaking to Genna Sosonko in 2004:

“Can I say that chess game me everything in life? Yes, of course. Now I’m on a pension, the chess federation also gives me something, my wife also has an income, so there’s nothing to complain about. But it’s not only about money, I also have something to do that I enjoy. And not everyone has that. Other people retire and they’re left with nothing to do, so they die quickly, because they don’t know how to occupy themselves. But I have chess, it rescues me to this day. You know, analysis is analysis, but playing, playing is still what I really want to do. Chess is a miracle, of course. A miracle.”

Quoted by Douglas Griffin

https://twitter.com/dgriffinchess

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

December 25, 2018

No one left out

Nigel Short today - A very happy #Christmas all my Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, Shintoist, Taoist, Zoroastrian, Shamanist, Pagan and atheist friends!


https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess?...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

November 28, 2018

During the third game of the tie-break of the Carlsen-Caruana World Championship Match, Svidler, Giri and Grischuk were still discussing the twelfth game where Carlsen went for a draw in a very favorable position (and then rapids tie-break). Svidler didn’t like it:

The decision Magnus made in Game 12 annoyed me more that it should have. If you are looking for a passionate defence of what he did in Game 12 – I even saw an article today which compared the decision he took in Game 12 to a very very specific “scandal” happening right now in Indian Women’s Cricket. There are all kinds of weird comparisons going around explaining why what he did was correct.


Chess24.com coverage of the Match, Nov. 28

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

November 22, 2018

Grischuk, Giri and Svidler are commentating during the 10^thgame of the WCC 2018

Alexander talks of physiological problems when you are short of time. Anish posits that you can’t drink too much, you must limit your input during a game.

Peter says that rationing your liquid intake and output is a widely unappreciated skill of top chess players.

Chess24 broadcast, November 22, 2018

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 18, 2014

Why the cucumber?

The Banterthon is back!

Grandmasters Jan Gustafsson and Pepe Cuenca will play chess24 Premium members non-stop for 12 hours this Thursday, 18th October. If you’ve ever wanted to play a chess grandmaster – and especially a grandmaster wearing a wig or hat while holding a cucumber – now’s your chance! They’ll play from 8am in the morning to 8pm at night, so if the tension of the European Club Cup final round becomes too much you know where to turn.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 8, 2018

You do well in the Olympiad. Whom do you thank and congratulate?

From Wesley So’s Facebook entry:

Thank you Lord for giving us the Silver Medal at the 2018 Batumi Olympiad. A great blessing because I personally know I should have played better than I did. Total Congratulations to China for Gold! You guys really deserved that. And Russia for the Bronze! Congratulations also to the Polish team who just missed the podium but played really excellently. Thank you to Go2Life bottled water for keeping me energized and hydrated wherever I go. Thank you to our Fide hosts and the wonderful city of Batumi Georgia which is beautiful and hospitable. A very memorable Olympiad also because we now have a new Fide President, Arkady Dvorkovich. Hopefully great things are just ahead for the world of chess.

God has been so good to me. AMDG

https://www.facebook.com/pg/wesleyso/posts/

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Supplemental: A post from June 17:

I want to thank the Norwegian makers of Go2Life water for sending me to Belgium with the gift of a suitcase filled with their bottled water - just because I told them how much I liked it!!! I really do! Who knows, maybe it helped me win! At the very least I was never dehydrated.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

September 12, 2018

Garry Kasparov is playing in the Chess960 Champions Showdown at St. Louis. There are a set of five matches.

Several of the players were asked how it is to play in a tournament in which Garry is competing.

Sam Shankland: The only negative thing about playing an event featuring Kasparov is that I don’t get to play with him. When I had to choose my opponent, Kasparov was my first choice but if you don’t ask the pretty one to the prom right away, you end up with Maxime!

Of course, I am delighted to be playing with MVL, he is a fantastically strong opponent but I am little bit worried that I will be distracted watching Kasparov play, because he was my hero growing up.

[Hans Jung]

From the great Tartakower: A master can sometimes play badly, a fan never.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 29, 2018

Bobby Fischer in the Olympiads and American Teams from 1960 to 1970 (incl)

Fischer’'s record in the Chess Olympiads

Bobby Fischer’'s record in Olympiads was outstanding. He scored 49 points from 65 games (+40, -7, =18) winning two team silver medals (and two fourth-place finishes) and two silver and one bronze individual medals. His career winning percentage of 75.4% is among the top 15 players of all-time, behind only Isaac Kashdan (79.7%) and James Tarjan (75.5%), among American players who have played in more than one Olympiad.

1960 (Leipzig) 2nd – Bobby Fischer, Lombardy, R. Byrne, Bisguier, Rossolimo, Raymond Weinstein, Kashdan (captain)
1962 (Varna) 4th - Fischer, Pal Benko, Evans, R. Byrne, Donald Byrne, Edmar Mednis, Eliot Hearst (captain)
1964 (Tel Aviv) 6th - Reshevsky, Benko, Anthony Saidy, Bisguier, D. Byrne, William Addison, Kashdan (captain)
1966 (Havana) 2nd - Fischer, R. Byrne, Benko, Evans, Addison, Rossolimo, D. Byrne (captain)
1968 (Lugano) 4th - Reshevsky, Evans, Benko, R. Byrne, Lombardy, D. Byrne (playing captain)
1970 (Siegen) 4th - Fischer, Reshevsky, Evans, Benko, Lombardy, Mednis, ed Edmondson (captain)

From: Mechanics’ Institute Chess Room Newsletter #839, August 24, 2018 (John Donaldson)

https://www.chessclub.org/news.php

[Hans Jung]

Chess is so deep --- I simply feel lost - Vlad Kramnik

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 8, 2018

What would you do?

You are preparing a sale catalogue for a collection of chess books and you have a nice item with an unreadable (to you) signature. What would you do?

The listing:

34A Dombrovskis (A.): Saha Kompozicija Padomju Latvija. Riga 1961. 1st Edn. Red hardback boards, VG. 158pp., 441 problems. Possibly signed by author on endpaper. £12.00

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 6, 2018

Drinkable Chess Prizes

From ChessBase:

“The fourth edition of the Wine Open took place in Hourtin, near Bordeaux. The traditional prizes in this unique event are bottle of wines delivered according to the winners' weight. 15-year-old Antoine Bournel took first place and took home 51 bottles after the weigh-in was made.”

Evi Zickelbein at:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/wine-open-2018

_________

The Shanghai Chess Club has a monthly prize of Whisky for Chess:

“Every Thursday earn points to win a bottle of Single Malt, Glenfiddich 12 Years.

Each month, the player with the highest points gets the bottle.

Rules: Rapid chess (FIDE Rules) 3 pts for a win. 1 pt for a draw. Play 1 person maximum 3 times in one night. The bar has to stamp a card to show your points. If you lose the card, you've lost your points. New cards issued each month.”


http://shanghaichess.com/History/shc...-%20Events.htm

________

See also:

Quote #274

https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...-quotes/page19

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 3, 2018

Another Tough Simultaneous!

In an earlier posting, #467 in Great Chess Quotes, there was a description of a tough Spassky simultaneous. This one is worse!

From Olimpiu G. Urcan:

Wade against Pioneers

In a chess column on page 40 of the August 1956 issue of U.S.S.R., Alexander Kotov wrote the following in regard to Robert Wade's famous 1951 simultaneous exhibition in Moscow:

The increasing number of gifted young people coming to the fore every year is conducive to the development of chess as a sport. "But don't give simultaneous exhibitions with Young Pioneers," half in jest and half seriously Euwe warned his colleagues going to Moscow.

That there are good grounds for such a warning was learned especially well by the British Master R. Wade when he established a peculiar "world record" in Moscow in 1951. Giving a simultaneous exhibition on 30 boards against school children at the Moscow House of the Young Pioneer, Wade lost 20, drew 10 and thus failed to win a single game. Wade, however, demonstrated true stoicism after this incident.

"I think," said the witty Englishman, "that had any of the Young Pioneers played against 30 Wades, his result would have been no worse."