Alexander Alekhine Quotes

Chess continues to advance over time, so the players of the future will inevitably surpass me in the quality of their play, assuming the rules and regulations allow them to play serious chess. But it will likely be a long time before anyone spends 20 consecutive years as number, one as I did.

A very strong player can manage and can just know how to manage a thousand positions. I get it; it's a very arbitrary number. So then you have the world champion who could do more. But, again, any increase in numbers creates, sort of, a new level of playing. And then you go to the very top, and the difference is so minimal, but it does exist. So even a few players who never became world champion, like Vassily Ivanchuk, for instance, I think they belong to the same category.

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.

Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly composed.

This Guy (Messi) is the Best Player in the World, no doubt about that. I think we're always nervous about calling people who are currently playing, who are young at 23, to say he's the Best Player ever. But we shouldn't be. We should admit what we are seeing in front of our eyes. This is a special talent, who may be is the Best Player ever been seen.

Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it

The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant coaches.

I don't consider myself a particularly young chess player. I have been playing in the best tournaments in the world since I was 16 years old. In other sports, if you have been playing for seven years, you are not a young prodigy any more. You're one of the pros.

Messi the best player in the world by far. I don't think we'll ever see a player like him again.

The best player I ever played against is Thierry Henry. He was something else; i've played against Rooney and Ronaldo and players like that but i think he was the best player ever to play in the Premier League

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.

The ideal in chess can only be a collective image, but in my opinion it is Capablanca who most closely approaches this.

I would just hear piano players and I would hear music, and just think - I don't just want to sit here and passively listen; I want to get inside it.

If people don't think the odds are against you, you're doing it wrong.

St. Andrews by far is my favorite golf course in the world. It's where the game all started, it's why we have 18 holes instead of 22 and I think the history behind St. Andrews is amazing. There is no other golf course in the world that can say that every great player who has ever played the game has played that golf course.

I never went into a tournament or round of golf thinking I had to beat a certain player. I had to beat the golf course. If I prepared myself for a major, went in focused, and then beat the golf course, the rest took care of itself.

I think social media has allowed the players to be able to say things that maybe didn't come out right the first time and say what they really meant. I think that it keeps people fair and honest.

I think the best all-round baseball player ever was Joe DiMaggio.

Messi is a genius. He has everything. When I watch him, I see a player who is very, very skilful, very clever and his left foot is like Diego Maradona's.

I think umpires have too much power, without any system of checks and balances and the more money a player makes, the more the umpire tries to show off that power to him. Unfortunately, since I signed my contract my strike zone has suddenly become a lot larger.

By the time a player becomes a Grandmaster, almost all of his training time is dedicated to work on this first phase. The opening is the only phase that holds out the potential for true creativity and doing something entirely new.

I just think we should look at this as a chess match," he said, "between the world's greatest chess player and Garry Kasparov.

When you look at all of the great players who ever played the game, they all had that other gear that they could go to, and it makes a world of difference.

Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves.

I don't think anywhere is there a symbiotic relationship between caddie and player like there is in golf.