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Chess wisdom

"To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game"
"Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do."
(quotes by Savielly Tartakower)
Taken from Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savielly_Tartakower
More quotes from Tartakower:

Tartakower has made some comments about chess, some of which are cynical:
(😍Comments added by Bishop1964😍)

"It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men."

"An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard."

"The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made." (😍Better I make them before anybody else must make them😍)

"The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."

"The move is there, but you must see it." (Horowitz 1971:137) (😍I am trying so hard to find it😍)

"No game was ever won by resigning."

"I never defeated a healthy opponent." (This quotation refers to players who blame an illness, sometimes imaginary, for their loss.) (😍This is a good one.😍)

"Tactics is what you do when there is something to do; strategy is what you do when there is nothing to do."

"Moral victories do not count."

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders." (😍This could have been my quote😍)

"The great master places a knight on e5; checkmate follows by itself."

"A master can sometimes play badly, a fan never!" (😍Maybe that is the reason why I like "kiebitzing"😍)

"A match demonstrates less than a tournament. But a tournament demonstrates nothing at all."

"Chess is a struggle against one's own errors."

"Every chessplayer should have a hobby." (😍Luckily I have already one.😍)

"A game of chess has three phases: the opening, where you hope you stand better; the middlegame, where you think you stand better; and the ending, where you know you stand to lose."

"As long as an opening is reputed to be weak it can be played."

"Stalemate is the tragicomedy of chess."
Quote from my profile:
"In chess everybody likes to attack and win. But the most interesting puzzles are about defense and the most beautiful studies are about draw." (Nikita Lyashenko)
Explanation:
1) Defensive puzzles tend to be more subtle and harder to solve than «Mate in N» or material gain, because you must accurately analyze all possibilities of your opponent, whereas winning puzzles are more forced.
2) Endgame studies with «Move and draw» stipulation contain the most unusual and beautiful ideas (fortresses, underpromotions for stalemate or perpetual check).
@NikitaLyashenko

You are absolutely right with your last posting.
Unfortunately most of the puzzles which I had to solve didn't belong to the defensive ones.

If you have good defensive and drawish puzzles, please make a Lichess-study with "interactive mode" and send me the link or an invitation to this study.
Quotes by famous chessplayers referring to different stages of the game:

all phases of the game:
A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third... when you know you're going to lose! (quote by Savielly Tartakower)

🎃opening:
Any opening is good enough, if its reputation is bad enough. (quote by Savielly Tartakower)

What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game. (quote by Siegbert Tarrasch)

🎃middlegame:
When you don't know what to play, wait for an idea to come into your opponent's mind. You may be sure that idea will be wrong. (quote by Siegbert Tarrasch)

Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game. (quote by Siegbert Tarrasch)

Seize the outpost e5 with your knight, and you can go to sleep. Checkmate will come by itself. (quote by Savielly Tartakower)

🎃endgame:
In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before everything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame. (quote by Jose Raul Capablanca)

It cannot be too greatly emphasized that the most important role in pawn endings is played by the king. (quote by Siegbert Tarrasch)
Chess is a sea in which gnats may drink and an elephant may bathe.

The game of chess is like the ocean, which a gnat may cross and where an elephant may drown.

Life is like a game of chess, changing with each move.

(Quotes found somewhere on the internet. Authors unknown)

october 29, 2019
People...calm down...chess is just another board game..like ludo,snakes and ladders..it isn't a way of life.
Quote from Savielly Tartakower : "Chess is fairy tale with 1001 blunders."

Quote by Bishop1964 : I like this comparison. And therefore I suggest that we all use from this day on the following names for the chess pieces.

King = The sorcerer
Queen = The witch
Rooks = The towers
Knights = The unicorns
Bishops = The twin brothers
Pawns = The 8 dwarfs or maybe The hateful eight (Quentin Tarrantino)

(Original Quotes by Bishop1964, made in the Lichess Forum (Off-Topic discussion) : Posting #21 and #23 in this thread: lichess.org/forum/off-topic-discussion/a-more-politically-correct-way-of-identifying-your-pieces?page=3#21)

october 29, 2019

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