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Once there is the slightest suggestion of combinational possibilities on the board, look for unusual moves. Apart from making your play creative and interesting it will help you to get better results.

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
Looks
Help
Possibilities
Interesting
Moves
Moving
Combination
Suggestion
Making
Chess
Slightest
Helping
Apart
Suggestions
Better
Possibility
Board
Look
Results
Boards
Play
Creative
Unusual

More quotes by 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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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 must not let your opponent know how you feel.
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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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
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After a great deal of discussion in Soviet literature about the correct definition of a combination, it was decided that from the point of view of a methodical approach it was best to settle on this definition - A combination is a forced variation with a sacrifice.
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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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
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Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!
Alexander Kotov
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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
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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
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Time trouble is blunder time.
Alexander Kotov
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In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.
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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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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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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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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If a chess statistician were to try and satisfy his curiousity over which stage of the game proved decisive in the majority of cases, he would certainly come to the conclusion that it is the middlegame that provides the most decisive stage.
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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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