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Memorization of variations could be even worse than playing in a tournament without looking in the books at all.

Mikhail Botvinnik

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Mikhail Botvinnik
Age: 83 †
Born: 1911
Born: August 17
Died: 1995
Died: May 5
Chess Coach
Chess Composer
Chess Player
Electrical Engineer
Engineer
Writer
Kuokkala
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik
Without
Variation
Even
Chess
Worse
Theory
Playing
Memorization
Books
Variations
Looking
Tournament
Book
Tournaments

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Don't worry kids, you'll find work. After all, my machine will need strong chess player-programmers. You will be the first.
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Every great master will find it useful to have his own theory on the openings, which only he himself knows, a theory which is closely linked with plans for the middle game.
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In short, we can see Karpov as an exploiter of other people’s ideas. His ability to use these ideas is not at issue, but he himself is about as fertile as a woman who has been sterilized is.
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It must be clearly understood that Soviet players do not seek simple systems in the opening, but try to formulate opening systems in which everything is complicated, distinctive, or new.
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A knight ending is really a pawn ending.
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You have to accustom yourself to practical study at home, you have to devote time to studies, to the history of chess, the development of chess theory, of chess culture.
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I only think well when my mind is calm.
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Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic.
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If you are weak in the endgame, you must spend more time analysing studies in your training games you must aim at transposing to endgames, which will help you to acquire the requisite experience.
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Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately
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Chess, like any creative activity, can exist only through the combined efforts of those who have creative talent, and those who have the ability to organize their creative work
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Yes, I have played a blitz game once. It was on a train, in 1929.
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Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists
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There is no better place for learning to work independently and to extend your horizon than in higher school.
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If you are going to make your mark among masters, you have to work far harder and more intensively, or, to put it more exactly, the work is far more complex than that needed to gain the title of Master.
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I ... have two vocations: chess and engineering. If I played chess only, I believe that my success would not have been significantly greater. I can play chess well only when I have fully convalesced from chess and when the 'hunger for chess' once more awakens within me.
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Everything is in a state of flux, and this includes the world of Chess
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Before Geller we did not understand the King's Indian Defence.
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Capablanca's play produced and still produces an irresistable artistic effect. In his games a tendency towards simplicity predominated, and in this simplicity there was a unique beauty of genuine depth.
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Chess is the art of analysis.
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