Quote

You must not let your opponent know how you feel.

Alexander Kotov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Kotov
Age: 67 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 12
Died: 1981
Died: January 8
Author
Chess Player
Non-Fiction Writer
Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov
Feels
Opponent
Opponents
Psychology
Feel
Must

More quotes by Alexander Kotov

Image
There is no doubt that the reason for my awful oversight was over-confidence that sapped my sense of danger. So that is where to look for the cause of bad blunders - in the exulting feeling of self-congratulation.
Alexander Kotov
Image
If your opponent is short (on time), play just as you played earlier in the game. If you are short keep calm, I repeat, don't get flustered. Keep up the same neat writing of the moves, the same methodical examination of variations, but at a quicker rate.
Alexander Kotov
Image
It is better to follow out a plan consistently even if it isn't the best one than to play without a plan at all. The worst thing is to wander about aimlessly.
Alexander Kotov
Image
The main thing that develops positional judgement, that perfects it and makes it many-sided, is detailed analytical work, sensible tournament practice, a self-critical attitude to your games and a rooting out of all the defects in your play.
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.
Alexander Kotov
Image
Once upon a time supporters of the Steinitz-Tarrasch school had a very high opinion of a queen-side pawn majority. Modern strategy on the other hand categorically denies that such a majority is an independent factor of any importance.
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two first-category players knocked pieces off the board as they were exchanged, so that the pieces fell onto the floor. It was as if they were playing skittles and not chess!
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
The masters and grandmasters can be divided into three groups - the inveterate time trouble merchants, those who sometimes get into trouble, and those for whom the phenomenon is a very rare occurence.
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
Time trouble is blunder time.
Alexander Kotov
Image
Go through detailed variations in your own time, think in a general way about the position in the opponent's time and you will soon find that you get into time trouble less often, that your games have more content to them, and that their general standard rises.
Alexander Kotov
Image
Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
Alexander Kotov
Image
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
Image
In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.
Alexander Kotov
Image
My achievements in the field of chess are the result of immense hard work in studying theory.
Alexander Kotov