Opening Theory Quotes

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.

Chess is everything: art, science, and sport.

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.

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

An amusing fact: as far as I can recall, when playing the Ruy Lopez I have not yet once in my life had to face the Marshall Attack!

Chess is one of the few arts where composition takes place simultaneously with performance

The Chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem

There's no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it.

I honestly feel very humble when I study Capablanca's games.

My forte was the middlegame. I had a good feeling for the critical moments of the play. This undoubtedly compensated for my lack of opening preparation and, possibly, not altogether perfect play in the endgame. In my games things often did not reach the endgame!

Chess is a matter of daily training.

Capablanca did not apply himself to opening theory (in which he never therefore achieved much), but delved deeply into the study of end-games and other simple positions which respond to technique rather than to imagination.

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

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.

Boris Vasilievich was the only top-class player of his generation who played gambits regularly and without fear ... Over a period of 30 years he did not lose a single game with the King's Gambit, and among those defeated were numerous strong players of all generations, from Averbakh, Bronstein and Fischer, to Seirawan.

Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation.

Chess you don't learn, chess you understand.

Chess is life in miniature. Chess is struggle, chess is battles

It doesn't require much for misfortune to strike in the King's Gambit - one incautious move, and Black can be on the edge of the abyss.

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.

Patzer sees a check, gives a check.

Chess players are madmen of a certain quality, the way the artist is supposed to be, and isn't, in general.

Chess is so deep, I simply feel lost.