Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

March 4, 2020

How many chess players does it take to change a lightbulb?

The World Champion enters a dark room. He sends for his team of seconds to fix the problem and wanders off to find food.

The World Champion’s team of elite GMs enters the dark room. They squabble for two weeks, before deciding if darkness is good enough for the Champion, it’s good enough for them.

An IM enters the room. He’s confident he can change the bulb but he can’t quite reach.

An expert enters the room. He’s spent a lot of money on lightbulbs but he’s never learned how to use them. He offers one to the GMs, who shrug and politely decline, stating they “prefer to discover their own lightbulbs”.

An amateur enters the room. It’s the middle of the day so he opens the curtains.

Tweet of Mr. Dodgy

https://twitter.com/ChessProblem

[Hans Jung]

Once there is the slightest suggestion of combinational possibilities on the board, look for unusual moves. Apart from making your play creative and interesting, it will help you get better results.
Alexander Kotov. I first read this a long time ago and then I couldnt find the quote for the longest time. Then it resurfaced for me and I knew that I may have forgotten the exact words and the source but I have applied the principle in my most interesting games; and thats what really matters.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

March 21, 2020

Player Replicas

The world is in a Covid-19 pandemic. The term of the day is “social distancing” – keeping yourself at least 1.5 metres from anybody else.

World Chess has come up with an idea which I initially thought was a joke but turns out to be real. It is just another idea that they have had that is, I believe, bad marketing.

HOW DO YOU KEEP THE WORLD’S CHESS ELITE SAFE while they are taking part in the most important tournament in their careers in a country where all sports events are put on hold amid the coronavirus scare? You keep them isolated as much as possible.

WORLD CHESS, a media company and an official partner of FIDE, the chess governing body, developed an innovative way to supplement the event’s coverage without putting the players at risk: Ken and Barbie-like models of the players are prepared and will be available for photography and filming while the players can be safe during the event.

5-inch players’ replicas, wearing suits as ties as per FIDE regulations, sitting at the chess tables, can be photographed shaking opponents hands, while the real players will avoid doing that based on the recent health advisory.

“Unlike in boxing or tennis, in chess players have not been historically docile to pose for photos, especially after losing an important game,” explains Ilya MEREZNON, World Chess CEO, “Now, with the coronavirus and stress, they will probably avoid appearing in public. Having organized numerous tournaments and aware of this, World Chess will supplement the event’s coverage with photos of 5-inch replicas of the players, so the media and organizers can have more assets for the event’s coverage”

Images will be available for all media and chess fans alike to use with Creative Commons license.

The images are set to supplement the official coverage. FIDE’s official photographers and accredited media provide official images, which are available from the FIDE press office.

https://worldchess.com/news/players-...eing-in-public

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

March 21, 2020

Chess and Snooker

From the English Chess Forum

Daniel Gormally - I was thinking yesterday how Caruana was unlucky in a way, that it wasn't the situation like it is in other sports, where you get a world championship every year (like in snooker or darts.)

I think in some years he's looked as good or even superior to Carlsen overall. So I think in that scenario he would have won a couple of world titles by now, players like Ding and Aronian would have possibly won one, and Magnus himself would probably be on about 5 or 6. I think he's unlucky as if he doesn't qualify this time around (and I don't think he will) it'll become tougher and tougher as players like Alireza will begin to break through.

Jonathan Rogers - Apples and oranges, though, isn't it (chess and snooker, I mean). By my reckoning - and I confess I did look up the list, having lost track about 15 years ago - there have been 21 world snooker champions since the event was played at the Crucible in 1977, compared with the sixteen generally recognised world chess champions since 1886. Essentially in snooker, they are not wedded to the idea that the winner must be probably or arguably the best player in the world. In chess, I think we are. So when chess tried it the snooker way between 1999-2004, Khalifman and Khazimdzhanov were two of the four winners, that was that.

(There are of course several other important differences between chess and snooker, including the presence of sponsors and TV to pay to see them all having a go each year, not to mention that in seventeen days they can have LONGER than usual matches and finish the whole thing).

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic...0491&start=150

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

March 28, 2020

When You Could Smoke at the Board

Raymond Keene

As to smoking, the Olympic standard was set by the Dutch Grandmaster Jan Hein Donner, who seemed to exist on a diet of black coffee (of which 90 per cent was heaped up white sugar) and hand rolled, chain smoked cigarettes. A new biography of the man described as the greatest Dutch contrarian of the 20th century, has just appeared, published by New in Chess.

At the 1973 match between England and the Netherlands, played in Manchester Town Hall, I drew my game on top board against the former Dutch World Champion (1935-1937) Dr Max Euwe. After we had finished discussing our game, I wandered over to watch the game on board two between Donner, a formidable player who had numbered both Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer among his victims, pitted against ten-times British champion, Dr Jonathan Penrose.

The contrast with modern chess could not have been more marked. At that time, smoking was permitted during play, and to accommodate the ash, outsize circular Bakelite ashtrays were placed on each table. Donner constantly refilled his sugar-fuelled black coffees, and backed up this stimulant with cigarette after cigarette, lighting each new one with the stub of the old and thereby building up a vast pile of half burnt cigarettes in the ashtray.

Eventually, the pile of ash increased to mountainous dimensions, it began to emit smoke itself, then burst into flames and caused the giant ashtray to crack into two. There was now, literally, fire on board! The two players seemed transfixed, horrified, and unable to react in this crisis.

Realising that urgent action was mandatory, during this temporary mental paralysis of the two combatants, I, with what I considered to be admirable presence of mind, seized Donner’s coffee cup and hurled the contents onto the flaming heap of ash, thus extinguishing the flames. Given the very high sugar content of the liquid, however, my prompt action had the effect of converting the conflagration into a thick, black, sticky, hot, steaming pyroclastic flow, trickling slowly across the table, but at least no longer threatening to consume Manchester Town Hall in flames.

As if emerging from a trance, Donner and Penrose looked up at each other, spontaneously, agreed the game drawn, fled from the scene and left me to explain to the janitor what had happened , before he set about cleaning up the liquefied mini-volcanic residue still smouldering on their chess table.


https://www.thearticle.com/chess-smokescreens

Other chess mishaps:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-funn...urnament-hall-

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

April 4, 2020

Famous chess players not talking about chess

Anish Giri in a recent interview:

The football coach Leonid Slutsky, who worked in the Netherlands, spoke about the law-abiding nature of your citizens. By way of an example he gave the situation with speed limits on roads, which the Dutch never break.

I can explain what that’s connected to - it’s not about mentality. In the Netherlands it’s very hard to pass your driving test. I only managed with difficulty. I spent a huge amount of hours, time and nerves in order to get my driving licence. It’s all very strict. When you get it the rules are so deeply embedded in you that you follow them. So here it’s more connected to the system of getting that right, while there are hooligans everywhere.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gir...ly-chaotically

Surya Shekhar Ganguly in an NIC interview:

Which three people would you like to invite for dinner?

Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus.

In the Just Checking column on page 106 of New In Chess 2020#2

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

April 9, 2020

A Sports Story with Everything

By Arun George@timesgroup.com

Despite power failure, GM Narayanan powers on

Kochi: Chess Grandmaster SL Narayanan is in a rush to arrange an inverter. He’s hoping to borrow one as it is tough to buy anything non-essential during the nationwide lockdown in the wake of the Covid-29 pandemic.

The Kerala player almost lost a quarterfinal tie with Venezuelan GM Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli and missed out on a potential final pairing with world champion Magnus Carlsen in the popular Banter Blitz Cup online tournament in chess24.com, due to power failure Monday night.

The tie was scheduled at 10pm and Narayan had logged in from his home at Thiruvananthapuram. He was cruising at 3.5-1.5 when the first setback occurred. Again, while leading 6.5-4.5, power failure played spoil-sport for a second time. The nature of the online tournament (3 minutes per player) is such that you forfeit if you lose connectivity while the game is on.

“Both the games were crucial and losing them due to connection problems nearly ruined the entire tie. Luckily power was back and I could win the last two games,” said Narayan after the exhaustive event.

At the end of it all, Narayan secured a 8.5-6.5 win in the 26-round tie.

Narayanan is the only Indian remaining in the knockout competition that started last September with 128 prominent players worldwide. World’s best Carlsen and the sensational Ali Reza Firouzja are two others left in the hunt.

Ideally, the popular Kerala GM would be t ravelling the world to play regular tournaments but with all events cancelled, he started to gibe online chess some serious thought.

“We need to live stream the games as well and my mobile internet and some usual services are not fast enough in our locality,” said Narayanan. His father Sunilduth says they are reliant on a cable-linked connection.

Narayanan is hoping to resolve the nagging non-chess problem when he faces Firouzja in the semifinal in a few days’ time. (April 10). The formidable blitz player had crushed German Georg Meier 8.5-2.5 to advance while Carlsen will be playing Sanan Sjugirov in the other last-four clash (Carlsen won 9 games to 0).


https://chess24.com/en/read/news/mag...er-s-footsteps

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

May 6, 2020

From an FIDE article entitled Andor Lilienthal: 99 years of prowess

https://www.fide.com/news/512

In 1976, at the request of his mother, Andor returned to Budapest and lived there since. Almost all chess kings of the XX century visited his apartment in the Hungarian capital, but Bobby Fischer was the only one who lived there for a month. It happened when he was hiding from the US authorities after the 1992 match with Spassky in Yugoslavia. “He could eat half a pot of Olga’s borsch and loved caviar,” – recalled Andor in one of the interviews. They were friends. The flighty American genius approved only three chess players who could carry his coffin at the funeral: Andor Lilienthal, Lajos Portisch, and Boris Spassky.

[Hans Jung]

Great Chess Quotes

May 6, 2020

From an FIDE article entitled Andor Lilienthal: 99 years of prowess

https://www.fide.com/news/512

In 1976, at the request of his mother, Andor returned to Budapest and lived there since. Almost all chess kings of the XX century visited his apartment in the Hungarian capital, but Bobby Fischer was the only one who lived there for a month. It happened when he was hiding from the US authorities after the 1992 match with Spassky in Yugoslavia. “He could eat half a pot of Olga’s borsch and loved caviar,” – recalled Andor in one of the interviews. They were friends. The flighty American genius approved only three chess players who could carry his coffin at the funeral: Andor Lilienthal, Lajos Portisch, and Boris Spassky.

Thats something I didnt know and says alot. re carrying Fischer's coffin: Lilienthal, Portisch and Spassky.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

May 20, 2020

Nigel Short:

Covid-19 has taught me a few lessons. One of them is that I do not need to travel abroad every 4 weeks to stay sane.

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