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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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Alexander Kotov
Age: 67 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 12
Died: 1981
Died: January 8
Author
Chess Player
Non-Fiction Writer
Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov
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Saws
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Skittles
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Moscow
Two
Fell
Knocked
More quotes by Alexander Kotov
You must not let your opponent know how you feel.
Alexander Kotov
The proponents of Steinitz' theory - Tarrasch and his supporters - tried to express Steinitz' teaching in the form of laconic rules, and as often happens in such cases, they went too far. The laconic tended to become dogmatic, and chess began to lose its freshness, originality and charm.
Alexander Kotov
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
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
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
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
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
Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
Alexander Kotov
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
When you have finished analyzing all the variations and gone along all the branches of the tree of analysis you must first of all write the move down on your score sheet, before you play it.
Alexander Kotov
In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.
Alexander Kotov
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
It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists.
Alexander Kotov
The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development.
Alexander Kotov
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
Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.
Alexander Kotov
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
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
Time trouble is blunder time.
Alexander Kotov
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
