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I cannot think that a player genuinely loving the game can get pleasure just from the number of points scored no matter how impressive the total. I will not speak of myself, but for the masters of the older generation, from whose games we learned, the aesthetic side was the most important. -

Alexander Kotov

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Alexander Kotov
Age: 67 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 12
Died: 1981
Died: January 8
Author
Chess Player
Non-Fiction Writer
Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov
Matter
Learned
Generation
Genuinely
Important
Game
Masters
Impressive
Think
Sides
Number
Aesthetic
Thinking
Beauty
Whose
Points
Pleasure
Generations
Total
Games
Player
Chess
Speak
Side
Loving
Cannot
Numbers
Older
Scored

More quotes by Alexander Kotov

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In choosing an opening plan players think most of all of harmonious development for the pieces, but sometimes leave the development of the queen out of their considerations. Yet the Queen is the most valuable and important piece and the whole outcome can depend upon how successfully she plays her role.
Alexander Kotov
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You must not let your opponent know how you feel.
Alexander Kotov
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Here is a definition which correctly reflects the course of thought and action of a grandmaster: - The plan in a game of chess is the sum total of successive strategical operations which are each carried out according to separate ideas arising from the demands of the position.
Alexander Kotov
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Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
Alexander Kotov
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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.
Alexander Kotov
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You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions which he had had before. This is not lack of deciciveness or slowness, but the employment of a basic endgame principle which is 'Do not hurry'.
Alexander Kotov
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The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development.
Alexander Kotov
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Once we have chosen the right formation in the centre we have created opportunities for our pieces and laid the foundation of subsequent victory.
Alexander Kotov
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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.
Alexander Kotov
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Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.
Alexander Kotov
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The study of typical plans is something that the leading grandmasters devote a great deal of time to. I would say that the most far-seeing of them devote as much time to this as to the study of openings.
Alexander Kotov
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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.
Alexander Kotov
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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!
Alexander Kotov
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Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!
Alexander Kotov
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My achievements in the field of chess are the result of immense hard work in studying theory.
Alexander Kotov
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Just as the pianist practices the most complicated pieces to improve the technique of his fingers, so too a grandmaster must keep his vision in trim by daily analysis of positions with sharp possibilities, and this applies whether he prefers such positions in his play or not.
Alexander Kotov
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If you can play the first ten or fifteen moves in just as many minutes, you can be in a state of bliss for the rest of the game. If, on the other hand, Bronstein thinks for forty minutes about his first move, then time trouble is inevitable.
Alexander Kotov
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I soon realized that it is not enough for a master simply to analyse variations scrupulously just like an accountant. He must learn to work out which particular moves he should consider and then examine just as many variations as necessary - no more and no less.
Alexander Kotov
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The placing of the centre pawns determines the topography of a game of chess.
Alexander Kotov
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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.
Alexander Kotov