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If Steinitz continually took pains to discover combinations, the success or failure of his diligent search could not be explained by him as due to chance. Hence, he concluded that some characteristic, a quality of the given position, must exist that would indicate the success or the failure of the search before it was actually undertaken.

Emanuel Lasker

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Emanuel Lasker
Age: 72 †
Born: 1868
Born: December 24
Died: 1941
Died: January 11
Bridge Player
Chess Composer
Chess Player
Mathematician
Philosopher
Actually
Combination
Pains
Success
Discover
Characteristic
Pain
Exist
Explained
Given
Failure
Continually
Undertaken
Must
Took
Hence
Concluded
Would
Position
Characteristics
Combinations
Quality
Dues
Indicate
Chance
Search
Diligent

More quotes by Emanuel Lasker

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In mathematics, if I find a new approach to a problem, another mathematician might claim that he has a better, more elegant solution. In chess, if anybody claims he is better than I, I can checkmate him.
Emanuel Lasker
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Without error, there is no brilliancy.
Emanuel Lasker
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The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.
Emanuel Lasker
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I believe in magic ... There is magic in the creative faculty such as great poets and philosophers conspicuously possess, and equally in the creative chessmaster.
Emanuel Lasker
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Chess is, above all, a fight.
Emanuel Lasker
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When you see a good move, look for a better one.
Emanuel Lasker
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An advantage could consist not only in a single important advantage but also in a multitude of insignificant advantages.
Emanuel Lasker
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The combination player thinks forward he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind
Emanuel Lasker
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Without error there can be no brilliancy
Emanuel Lasker
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By what right does White, in an absolutely even position, such as after move one, when both sides have advanced 1. e4, sacrifice a pawn, whose recapture is quite uncertain, and open up his kingside to attack? And then follow up this policy by leaving the check of the black queen open? None whatever!
Emanuel Lasker
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Loss generally occurs when a player overrates his advantage or for other reasons seeks to derive from a minute advantage a great return such as a forced win.
Emanuel Lasker
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By positional play a master tries to prove and exploit true values, whereas by combinations he seeks to refute false values ... A combination produces an unexpected re-assessment of values.
Emanuel Lasker
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He who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his antagonist who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage.
Emanuel Lasker
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A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance.
Emanuel Lasker
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The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's brain.
Emanuel Lasker
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To refer to the oft mooted question, Which piece is stronger, the Bishop or the Knight? it is clear that the value of the Bishop undergoes greater changes than that of the Knight.
Emanuel Lasker
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The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.
Emanuel Lasker
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Do not permit yourself to fall in love with the end-game play to the exclusion of entire games. It is well to have the whole story of how it happened the complete play, not the denouement only. Do not embrace the rag-time and vaudeville of chess.
Emanuel Lasker
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Show me three lines of the opening theory moves and I will prove to you that two of them are incorrect.
Emanuel Lasker
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On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long
Emanuel Lasker