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I only think well when my mind is calm.

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
Wells
Well
Mind
Think
Thinking
Calm

More quotes by Mikhail Botvinnik

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It is peculiar but a fact nevertheless, that the gamblers in chess have enthusiastic followers.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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It is a well known fact that almost all the outstanding chess-players have been first-class analysts.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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A knight ending is really a pawn ending.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Chess is the art of analysis.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists
Mikhail Botvinnik
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There is no better place for learning to work independently and to extend your horizon than in higher school.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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When my opponent's clock is going I discuss general considerations in an internal dialogue with myself. When my own clock is going I analyse conctrete variations.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Yes, I have played a blitz game once. It was on a train, in 1929.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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The triumph of the analytical movement, which formed in the '30's and '40's, was precisely what earned the Soviet masters the acclaim of chessplayers the world over. Unfortunately, it must also be noted that, for today's chessmasters, the watchword is practicality.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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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.
Mikhail Botvinnik
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Along with my retirement from chess analytical work seems to have gone too.
Mikhail Botvinnik