Viswanathan Anand Quotes

Bobby Fischer has an enormous knowledge of chess and his familiarity with the chess literature of the USSR is immense.

I love to play chess. The last time I was playing, I started to really see the board. I don't mean just seeing a few moves ahead - something else. My game started getting better. It's the patterns. The patterns are universal.

I play a lot of chess, just to a bog-average level. But I find it stimulates your mind with all the combinations of different moves.

Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.

You cannot say, 'Go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good move!' People want some emotion. Chess is an art and not a spectator sport.

Many persons have been confused and discouraged at the very outset of the study by the great variety and the delicate distinctions of the openings: and this has constituted a fault in many otherwise excellent manuals for the learner.

I started by just sitting by the chessboard exploring things. I didn't even have books at first, and I just played by myself. I learnt a lot from that, and I feel that it is a big reason why I now have a good intuitive understanding of chess.

For us chess players the language of artist is something natural.

I didn't know so well chess theory, the theory of chess openings. And so, of course I knew the theory, but not on the level of the best players, so this was my... this was always my weakness.

In chess, we have styles - like in any other field. There are also fashions in the kinds of systems that people play. So I'm trying to know my opponent as much as possible.

The very idea of how chess players manipulate their game excites me.

I started chess around the age of seven. I was inspired by the game, but soon legends like Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Anand and many other world champions captivated me.

I learned to play chess at a young age, and I think that's where learning to plan things out and put things in position, that was the best thing for me.

In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd ... It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.

I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.

My way of playing is very different and Karpov plays very differently as well.

I started playing chess when I was five years old. I learned the moves from my mother, then worked with my father - and later trainers. My style became very technical. I sacrificed a lot of things. I was always hunting for the king, for the mate. I'd forget about my other pieces.

Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.

I also follow chess on the Internet, where Kasparov's site is very interesting.

Before a match, I do not follow any chess news except the games.

I honestly don't read that much. Obviously I read chess books - in terms of favorites, Kasparov's 'My Great Predecessors' is pretty good.

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

For example, computer defends well, but for humans its is harder to defend than attack, particularly with the modern time control.

Pitches are like pages of a book; they're so important. The chess game; how I set you up early, and how I'll do it differently later.

The most interesting thing to me in chess are not the gambits. Or the moves. It's the mental toughness.