Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

November 25, 2020

Peter Leko and Tania Sachdev are commentating in the first knockout round of the Skilling Open 2020 and are conversing with Levon Aronian:

Tania: Do you decide the opening you are going to use before the game or just before you are about to move?

Levon: The decision process is fairly simple:

I prepare before the game

Then, I forget what I prepared

Then, I play randomly.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 27, 2020

I have heard that a man played another member at his club for 30 years without knowing if he had a family or not.

Here, a player doesn’t know the last name of his opponent.

And what were you doing (mooning your adversary?) to get stabbed in the bottom?

STAMFORD — An argument over a chess game resulted in one man being stabbed in the buttocks, but no arrests have been made in the case, police said.

Sgt. Kenneth Jarrett said police were called to an apartment on Mohawk Court on the report of an assault after 5 a.m. Saturday.

The 51-year-old victim said he knew only the first name of the man who stabbed him, and refused to give police any more information.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/pol...r-15675649.php

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 6, 2020

The Penrose Family

Nobel Prize for Physics Announcement 2020

Three scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe and still confound astronomers.

Briton Roger Penrose, German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez explained to the world these dead ends of the cosmos that devour light and even time. Staples of both science fact and fiction, black holes are still not completely understood, but they are deeply connected, somehow, to the creation of galaxies, where the stars and life exist.

Penrose, of the University of Oxford, received half of this year’s prize for discovering that Albert Einstein’s famous general theory of relativity predicts the formation of black holes, the Nobel Committee said.

From Wikipedia:

Jonathan Penrose, OBE (born 7 October 1933, in Colchester) is an English chess Grandmaster and International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (1983) who won the British Chess Championship ten times between 1958 and 1969. He is the son of Lionel Penrose, a world-famous professor of genetics, the grandson of the physiologist John Beresford Leathes, and brother of Roger Penrose and Oliver Penrose. He is a psychologist and university lecturer by profession, with a PhD.

Richard Dawkins on Twitter:

Many congratulations to Roger Penrose on winning the Nobel Prize for physics. Brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist.
Very distinguished family. Brother is a chess grandmaster. Another brother is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Father was a great geneticist.

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins?r...20%2F1%2F1%2F1

ChessTalkers may remember a thread from 2017 entitled: A chess problem solvable by intuition but not by computers.

https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...t-by-computers

The problem was set by Sir Roger.

[Aris Marghetis]

"All is good that is well forgotten." (Russian chess proverb)

Thanks for that one Frank, I had never heard of it before. It seems to also be translated as:

Everything new is well-forgotten old.

[Frank Dixon]

"All is good that is well forgotten." (Russian chess proverb)

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

September 27, 2020

Auction Troubles

You want to put some chess books up for auction, so you list them on one of the sites and wait for the bids to come in. No problem.

However, the collector, Victoriano Gallego Jimenez, had some prime items for the Lund auction for this weekend and then..nothing.

His explanation:

Hello dear chess friends!

Finally I had to suspend the auction, because I had a problem with the computer. After sending the auction email, and before being able to work with the new items, the computer updated Windows 10 to version 2004 (it is the latest) and also automatically updated the BIOS (on the motherboard), and the computer was frozen for almost 40 hours, until finally yesterday I was able to fix the problem with the help of a computer friend.

What a bad time I have! It has been hell and I thought there was no immediate solution, that I would have to send the computer to Technical Service! Luckily everything has been a great scare. Sorry for all the inconvenience caused. From today, I will start adding items.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

September 9, 2020

From SpraggettonChess

http://www.spraggettonchess.com/round-and-round-we-go/

I was born in Montreal, Canada in 1954 and can’t remember exactly when I fell in love with the game. When I was 15 I played in my first nationally rated tournament…and I lost the very first game! My Irish genes made me a talented fighter by nature, so I quickly bounced back. At 17 I was a Master level player; at 18 I qualified for the National Team; at 20 I was an IM.

Then there was a long lull. In Montreal in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there were no opportunities to get a GM-norm. (The world and the rules have changed since.) I feel that I was GM-strength at age 22, but had to wait until 30 to officially be awarded the GM title. In between, I won virtually every major North American Open tournament (except the US Open, where I only finished 2nd), and twice the CommonWealth Championship.

In the summer of 1985 I qualified for the Candidates Tournament , at the time only the 5th North American to do so, after Fischer, Reshevsky, Benko and Robert Byrne. (Yasser Seirawan qualified a week after at the Biel Interzonal –becoming number 6–and we both played in the Montpellier Candidates Tournament later that year.)

A few years later (1988) I was back in the Candidates Matches, defeating Andrei Sokolov but then losing to Artur Yussupov. Soon afterwards I moved to Portugal (married!) and have been resident there ever since.

I have won the Canadian Zonal as well as the Canadian Open on numerous occasions (too many to care to remember) and I have played on the Canadian National Team eight times. I continue to play with the Canadian flag even today.

I play a lot less now a days, but I am still a pretty strong practical player. I have also earned an excellent reputation as a world-class coach/trainer over the past twenty-odd years or so, and I have worked (and continue to work) with some of the world’s best.

Besides writing this blog, I have written dozens of chess articles reproduced in numerous languages. I will publish four (4!) e-books sometime in the next 6 months. As well, I have served on the FIDE Journalist Commission for the past 2 years (2014-2016)
________

Will the ebooks to be published have his best games?

[Hans Jung]

David Morgan: A chess optimist is someone who thinks he will never do anything as stupid again.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 31, 2020

The decision to declare India and Russia as joint winners of the gold medal after a connection issue in the FIDE Online Olympiad 2020 has met with some criticism. Three players tweeted their opinions: Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Levon Aronian.

There is also a general feeling that the rules were made up as the committee went along with their decision. This tweet from Peter Heine Nielsen:

A friend once spoke to Georgios Makropoulos who, with Sutovsky, were on the rules-commission for major FIDE events.

He asked Makro why are there not specified rules.

"There are," he replied.

Why are they not public?

"Because that is inconvenient when we want to do something else!"

[Brad Thomson]

When our junior hockey teams play in Russia, military jets swoop down over their hotel in the middle of the night causing our players to fail to get a proper night's sleep.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 30, 2020

From the Online Olympiad

In the FIDE Online Olympiad 2020, in the first match Armenia-India, there was a disconnect and so Armenia lost the match. They appealed, lost the appeal and resigned the second match without playing.

The team captain Levon Aronian tweeted this:

In our match against India, Haik Martirosyan lost on time due to disconnection from http://chess.com We proved that our connection was stable and the access problem was with chess.com, not on our side. All we asked for was to continue that game from the same position and same time. Is that too much to ask?

Two days later, in the Final, India was playing Russia and there were two disconnects in the second match (for India).

The FIDE President decided that the two countries should share the Gold Medal.

Levon Aronian on this decision:

I guess like always, some are less disconnected than others.
________

In the matches Russia-USA in the semi-finals, Sam Shankland had good positions but lost. These were critical mistakes and even his opponent, Ian Nepomniachtchi, had sympathy with him but Sam had none for himself:

(Tweet) - If you miss mate in 2 moves, blunder your passed pawn on the seventh rank, and lose control in a strategically dominant position, you don't deserve to win the tournament. Sorry to all US Chess fans, this one was on me. Best wishes to India and Russia for a great final tomorrow.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

August 17, 2020

From 20 to 5

When a lady marries and takes her husband’s family name, it is often quite a change.

This:

From FIDE Newsletter #012
August 17, 2020


The MOKATE 2020 Polish Women's Chess Championship was a 10-player round-robin taking place in Ostrów Wielkopolski, from 4-12 August. And like the Irish Championship, the event crowned someone who had never won the title before: the International Master Karina Cyfka, previously known as Karina Szczepkowska- Horowska.

[Larry Castle]

Great Chess Quotes

July 24, 2020

Memorizing Word Lists

Being able to memorize a list of words and then repeat them back in the right order and after a period of time is much in the news lately. Donald Trump in an interview said that he was able to do that difficult task quite easily on a cognitive assessment test recently.

Edward Winter has an article on the Memory Feats of Chess Masters

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/memory.html

This about Harry Nelson Pillsbury in 1896:

(After a simultaneous exhibition at the Northampton Club in Pennsylvania) he offered to memorize thirty words, no matter how hard they might be, the selections to be read to him only once. Professor Merriman of Lehigh University and Dr. Trelkeld-Edwards of Bethlehem picked out most of the following words: Antiphlogistian, pereosteum, takadiastase, plasmin, ambrosia, Threikeld, streptococcus, staphylococcus, micrococcus, plasmodium, Mississippi, Freiheit, Philadelphia, Cincinnati athletics, no war, Eichenberg, American, Russia, philosophy, Piet-Potgleter’s-Rost, Salamagundi, Oomisillecootsi, Bangmamvato, Schlechter’s Nek, Manziuyama, theosophy, catechism and Madjesoomalopa.

Pillsbury memorized these words and repeated them in the order given and in the reverse order, and he did not have any difficulty in repeating them the next day.

(For the spelling of the words, their meaning and their number, please see):

https://userpages.monmouth.com/~colo...pillsbury.html
_________

From the Fox News interview of July 19, 2020, President Donald Trump with Chris Wallace:

“The first questions are very easy,” Trump told Fox News. “The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s, like, you’ll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. It’s: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’”

He then recalled that, at the end of the test, the doctor asked him to recite it again.

“And you go: ‘Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’ If you get it in order, you get extra points,” Trump said. “They said nobody gets it in order. It’s actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy.”

Trump boasted that he dazzled the doctors because he has “a good memory, because8217;Im cognitively there”.

When later Trump was asked to repeat the first sentence of the last book he had read, he astounded the doctors with his genius by replying, "See Spot run".

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

July 24, 2020

Memorizing Word Lists

Being able to memorize a list of words and then repeat them back in the right order and after a period of time is much in the news lately. Donald Trump in an interview said that he was able to do that difficult task quite easily on a cognitive assessment test recently.

Edward Winter has an article on the Memory Feats of Chess Masters

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/memory.html

This about Harry Nelson Pillsbury in 1896:

(After a simultaneous exhibition at the Northampton Club in Pennsylvania) he offered to memorize thirty words, no matter how hard they might be, the selections to be read to him only once. Professor Merriman of Lehigh University and Dr. Trelkeld-Edwards of Bethlehem picked out most of the following words: Antiphlogistian, pereosteum, takadiastase, plasmin, ambrosia, Threikeld, streptococcus, staphylococcus, micrococcus, plasmodium, Mississippi, Freiheit, Philadelphia, Cincinnati athletics, no war, Eichenberg, American, Russia, philosophy, Piet-Potgleter’s-Rost, Salamagundi, Oomisillecootsi, Bangmamvato, Schlechter’s Nek, Manziuyama, theosophy, catechism and Madjesoomalopa.

Pillsbury memorized these words and repeated them in the order given and in the reverse order, and he did not have any difficulty in repeating them the next day.

(For the spelling of the words, their meaning and their number, please see):

https://userpages.monmouth.com/~colo...pillsbury.html
_________

From the Fox News interview of July 19, 2020, President Donald Trump with Chris Wallace:

“The first questions are very easy,” Trump told Fox News. “The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s, like, you’ll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. It’s: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’”

He then recalled that, at the end of the test, the doctor asked him to recite it again.

“And you go: ‘Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’ If you get it in order, you get extra points,” Trump said. “They said nobody gets it in order. It’s actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy.”

Trump boasted that he dazzled the doctors because he has “a good memory, because I’m cognitively there”.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

July 19, 2020

First Chess Books

Do you remember the first few chess books you read?

This from Jonathan Speelman (born 1956) and appearing in ChessBase:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/speelman-agony-126

When I was little, I had a row of chess books on a shelf above my bed. Of course I can’t remember all of them, but several are very clear.

After learning the moves of chess from my cousin on Boxing Day (December 26th) 1962, my first chess book was Chess for Children by Bott and Morrison, which gave me the basics.

My first-ever serious chess book though was Bob Wade’s account of the 1963 World Championship match between Mikhail Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian. My mum bought it for me in Edgware Road presumably — the match ran from March to May — in the summer of 1963. With a distinctive dark red cover once it lost its jacket (I can see it on a shelf now) I’ve enjoyed re-reading and dipping into it ever since. Some of the games — especially Petrosian's epic king march in game 5 — are truly memorable.

Later, I got Euwe and Kramer’s two-volume work on the middlegame, Bent Larsen’s Selected Games 1948-69 and Peter Clarke’s book on Mikhail Tal (which annoyingly, although I can see at least five other books on Tal, I can’t at the moment bring to hand).

And a couple of years later, I beat some 200ish ECF (2200ish) player in a simultaneous display at Foyles (the famous book shop on Tottenham Court Road) and won a whole selection of books from Pergamon Press, including Vladimir Vukovic’s wonderful The Art of Attack in Chess and a book on Petrosian by Alberic O’Kelly de Galway — the Belgian count who as an arbiter at some team competition in the 1970s once attempted to get the England team captain David Anderton to “order” myself and Jonathan Mestel to get our hair cut!

The Pergamon Tranche also included A Complete Defence to 1.P-K4, a study of the then backwater, the Petroff, by Bernard Caffery and David Hooper. Though our main opening bible in the English speaking world at that time was Modern Chess Openings.

I had the tenth edition (1965, completely revised by Larry Evans under the editorship of Walter Korn). Chess theory was then still very rudimentary compared to today, and there was a wonderfully whooly quote about the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon which went, “Black must react promptly and vigorously — just how is not quite clear”. I also found the 8th, 11th and 13th editions on my shelves. By the 11th (Walter Korn, 1972), defences had been found against the Yugoslav.