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Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight

Jose Raul Capablanca

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Jose Raul Capablanca
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More quotes by Jose Raul Capablanca

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An hour's history of two minds is well told in a game of chess.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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People who want to improve should take their defeats as lessons, and endeavor to learn what to avoid in the future. You must also have the courage of your convictions. If you think your move is good, make it.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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To improve at chess you should in the first instance study the endgame.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them what sorts of things to avoid in the future.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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To my way of thinking, Troitzky has no peer among endgame compsers no one else has composed so many and such varied endings of the first rank.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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During the course of many years I have observed that a great number of doctors, lawyers, and important businessmen make a habit of visiting a chess club during the late afternoon or evening to relax and find relief from the preoccupations of their work.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Endings of one rook and pawns are about the most common sort of endings arising on the chess board. Yet though they do occur so often, few have mastered them thoroughly. They are often of a very difficult nature, and sometimes while apparently very simple they are in reality extremely intricate.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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The game might be divided into three parts, the opening, the middle-game and the end-game. There is one thing you must strive for, to be equally efficient in the three parts.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Excellent! I will still be in time for the ballet!
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Your Soviet players are cheating, losing the games on purpose to my rival, Botvinnik, in order to increase his points on the score. - (to Stalin in Moscow 1936 where he finished in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Botvinnik)
Jose Raul Capablanca
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The king, which during the opening and middlegame stage is often a burden because it has to be defended, becomes in the endgame a very important and aggressive piece, and the beginner should realize this, and utilize his king as much as possible.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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The weaker the player the more terrible the Knight is to him, but as a player increases in strength the value of the Bishop becomes more evident to him, and of course there is, or should be, a corresponding decease in his estimation of the value of the Knight as compared to the bishop.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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The great World Champions Morphy, Steinitz, and Lasker were past masters in the art of Pawn play they had no superiors in their handling of endgames. The present World Champion has not the strength of the other three as an endgame player, and is therefore inferior to them.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Although the Knight is generally considered to be on a par with the Bishop in strength, the latter piece is somehat stronger in the majority of cases in which they are opposed to each other.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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None of the great players has been so incomprehensible to the majority of amateurs and even masters, as Emanuel Lasker.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by many masters, as has Emanuel Lasker.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before everything else.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Chess can never reach its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into a battle of ideas.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Morphy gained most of his wins by playing directly and simply, and it is simple and logical method that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is considered from the viewpoint of the great masters.
Jose Raul Capablanca
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Sultan Khan had become champion of India at Indian chess and he learned the rules of our form of chess at a later date. The fact that even under such conditions he succeeded in becoming champion reveals a genius for chess which is nothing short of extraordinary.
Jose Raul Capablanca