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

More quotes by 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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You must not let your opponent know how you feel.
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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In order to become a grandmaster class player whose understanding of chess is superior to the thousands of ordinary players, you have to develop within yourself a large number of qualities, the qualities of an artistic creator, a calculating practitioner, a cold calm competitor.
Alexander Kotov
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It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.
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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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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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
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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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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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Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
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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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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Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!
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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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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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
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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
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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