Just as the pianist practices the most complicated pieces to improve the technique of his fingers, so too a grandmaster must keep his vision in trim by daily analysis of positions with sharp possibilities, and this applies whether he prefers such positions in his play or not.

Alexander Kotov

Categorized in : Play Practice Training

Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth.

Alexander Kotov

drawing learning growth

Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!

Alexander Kotov

fischer genius chess

You must not let your opponent know how you feel.

Alexander Kotov

how-you-feel opponents psychology

Anyone who wishes to learn how to play chess well must make himself or herself thoroughly conversant with the play in positions where the players have castled on opposite sides.

Alexander Kotov

learning player opposites

You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions which he had had before. This is not lack of deciciveness or slowness, but the employment of a basic endgame principle which is 'Do not hurry'.

Alexander Kotov

employment principles moving

It is better to follow out a plan consistently even if it isn't the best one than to play without a plan at all. The worst thing is to wander about aimlessly.

Alexander Kotov

strategy play chess

Sit there for five hours? Certainly not! A player must walk about between moves, it helps his thinking.

Alexander Kotov

player success moving

If a chess statistician were to try and satisfy his curiousity over which stage of the game proved decisive in the majority of cases, he would certainly come to the conclusion that it is the middlegame that provides the most decisive stage.

Alexander Kotov

majority games trying

I cannot think that a player genuinely loving the game can get pleasure just from the number of points scored no matter how impressive the total. I will not speak of myself, but for the masters of the older generation, from whose games we learned, the aesthetic side was the most important. -

Alexander Kotov

player beauty thinking

The placing of the centre pawns determines the "topography" of a game of chess.

Alexander Kotov

topography games chess

After a great deal of discussion in Soviet literature about the correct definition of a combination, it was decided that from the point of view of a methodical approach it was best to settle on this definition - A combination is a forced variation with a sacrifice.

Alexander Kotov

variation sacrifice views

There is no doubt that the reason for my awful oversight was over-confidence that sapped my sense of danger. So that is where to look for the cause of bad blunders - in the exulting feeling of self-congratulation.

Alexander Kotov

congratulations self mistake

In analysing complicated variations one must examine each branch of the tree once and once only.

Alexander Kotov

variation analysis tree

When you have finished analyzing all the variations and gone along all the branches of the tree of analysis you must first of all write the move down on your score sheet, before you play it.

Alexander Kotov

play writing moving

Here is a definition which correctly reflects the course of thought and action of a grandmaster: - The plan in a game of chess is the sum total of successive strategical operations which are each carried out according to separate ideas arising from the demands of the position.

Alexander Kotov

demand games ideas

Time trouble is blunder time.

Alexander Kotov

trouble chess time

The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development.

Alexander Kotov

development world school

The proponents of Steinitz' theory - Tarrasch and his supporters - tried to express Steinitz' teaching in the form of laconic rules, and as often happens in such cases, they went too far. The laconic tended to become dogmatic, and chess began to lose its freshness, originality and charm.

Alexander Kotov

originality teaching chess

Go through detailed variations in your own time, think in a general way about the position in the opponent's time and you will soon find that you get into time trouble less often, that your games have more content to them, and that their general standard rises.

Alexander Kotov

games time thinking

In order to become a grandmaster class player whose understanding of chess is superior to the thousands of ordinary players, you have to develop within yourself a large number of qualities, the qualities of an artistic creator, a calculating practitioner, a cold calm competitor.

Alexander Kotov

player class order