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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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Alexander Kotov
Age: 67 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 12
Died: 1981
Died: January 8
Author
Chess Player
Non-Fiction Writer
Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov
Chess
Main
Drawing
Weakness
Conclusions
General
Stimulus
Growth
Weaknesses
Learning
Conclusion
Great
Provide

More quotes by Alexander Kotov

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Time trouble is blunder time.
Alexander Kotov
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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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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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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
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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
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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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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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My achievements in the field of chess are the result of immense hard work in studying theory.
Alexander Kotov
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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
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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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In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.
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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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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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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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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Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.
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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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
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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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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