General Tips
- When you see a good move wait - look for a better one. - Emanuel
Lasker
- Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and
the endgame like a machine. - Spielmann
- All that matters on the chessboard is good moves. - Bobby Fischer
- The pawns are the soul of chess. - Philidor
Tactics
- The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made. - Tartakover
- No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King. - Koblentz
- The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last
mistake. - Tartakover
- A man surprised is half beaten. - Proverb
- Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann
- There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine. - Tal
- The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary. - Nimzovich
- The pin is mightier than the sword. - Reinfeld
- The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given
position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind. - Emanuel Lasker
- Discovered check is the dive-bomber of the chessboard. - Fine
- If the student forces himself to examine all moves that smite, however
absurd they may look at first glance, he is on the way to becoming
a master of tactics. - Purdy
- The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas
the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do. - Gerald
Abrahams
- Examine moves that smite! A good eye for smites is far more important
than a knowledge of strategical principles. - Purdy
- The scheme of a game is played on positional lines; the decision
of it, as a rule, is effected by combinations. - Reti
- In the perfect chess combination as in a first-rate short story,
the whole plot and counter-plot should lead up to a striking finale,
the interest not being allayed until the very last moment. - Yates
and Winter
- A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes
the most complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them not
only not difficult, but almost a matter of course. - Tarrasch
- It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men. - Tartakover
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Middlegame
- The middlegame I repeat is chess itself; chess with all its
possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc. - Znosko-Borovsky
- Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame. -
Tarrasch
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Endgame
- Every pawn is a potential Queen. - Mason
- The Passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock
and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not
sufficient. - Nimzovich
- A Passed Pawn increases in strength as the number of pieces
on the board diminishes. - Capablanca
- Any material change in a position must come about by mate,
a capture, or a Pawn -promotion. - Purdy
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Planning
- Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all. - Mikhail
Chigorin
- It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but
a realisable plan. - Znosko-Borovsky
Analysis
- Methodical thinking is of more use in chess than inspiration.
- Purdy
- Chess is the art of analysis. - Botvinnik
- Chess mastery essentially consists of analysing chess positions
accurately. - Botvinnik
- Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game
turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one
knows in advance which half - Jan Tinman
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