Alexander Kotov Quotes
Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.
It is better to follow out a plan consistently even if it isn't the best one than to play without a plan at all. The worst thing is to wander about aimlessly.
Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development.
When you have finished analyzing all the variations and gone along all the branches of the tree of analysis you must first of all write the move down on your score sheet, before you play it.
In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.
I can remember a case where Capablanca worked out an impressive combination, but then chose to make a simple move in answer to which his opponent resigned at once!
Anyone who wishes to learn how to play chess well must make himself or herself thoroughly conversant with the play in positions where the players have castled on opposite sides.
If you study the classic examples of endgame play you will see how the king was brought up as soon as possible even though there seemed no particular hurry at the time.
All candidate moves should be identified at once and listed in one's head. This job cannot be done piecemeal, by first examining one move and then look at another.
It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.
Experience and the constant analysis of the most varied positions builds up a store of knowledge in a player's mind enabling him often at a glance to assess this or that position.
My achievements in the field of chess are the result of immense hard work in studying theory.
Once we have chosen the right formation in the centre we have created opportunities for our pieces and laid the foundation of subsequent victory.