Gza Quotes

Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game

The beautiful wooden board on a stand in my father's study. The gleaming ivory pieces. The stern king. The haughty queen. The noble knight. The pious bishop. And the game itself, the way each piece contributed its individual power to the whole. It was simple. It was complex. It was savage; it was elegant. It was a dance; it was a war. It was finite and eternal. It was life.

In chess, you should be as cool as a cucumber.

Football is a bit like chess: it's not just the piece being moved that matters; it's also the effect that move has on all the other pieces.

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.

Most beginners who have learned the point system will only consider a sacrifice if it leads directly to checkmate or if the material can be won back by force. A Grandmaster, though, will frequently sacrifice for less tangible compensation, such as a lead in development or a superior pawn structure.

It is impossible to win gracefully at chess.

Blitz chess kills your ideas.

[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.

Chess, like other arts, must be practiced to be appreciated.

I don't think I have a favorite chess move, other than checkmate, because each move is part of a combination of other moves. Just like I don't have a favorite piece, because they all work together. I mean, I love myself; I am the king on the board, but other pieces do different things and they all work together, so it's not one particular move unless it's checkmate because usually there's an answer. You know, chess is about questions and answers.

Capture of the adverse King is the ultimate but not the first object of the game

Chess is one long regret.

Often, in the Ruy Lopez, one must be patient, wait and carry on a lengthy and wearisome struggle.

Today, chess programs have become so good that even grandmasters sometimes struggle to understand the logic behind some of their moves.

The next move is always the test.

The game of chess is a metaphor for life... it teaches you strategy and it teaches you the value of knowing where you are, where you want to get to and what obstacles are in the way that you need to navigate in order to get there.

Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)

I consider chess an art, and accept all those responsibilities which art places upon its devotees.

Botvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations in ordinary life. He used to call chess a typical inexact problem similar to those which people are always having to solve in everyday life.

Capablanca plays very superficially sometimes, in a way that can only be ascribed to lack of concentration. This is an integral weakness of his make-up and can only be partially compensated by his employing his time allowance to the full.

In the ending the king is a powerful piece for assisting his own pawns, or stopping the adverse pawns.

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life

I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.

Moving first is a tactic, not a goal.