The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent.
It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.
The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.
Attackers may sometimes regret bad moves, but it is much worse to forever regret an opportunity you allowed to pass you by.
By strictly observing Botvinnik’s rule regarding the thorough analysis of one’s own games, with the years I have come to realize that this provides the foundation for the continuous development of chess mastery.
One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.
The West can’t come up with anything to deal with Moscow, except appeasement.
The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early.
The highest Art of the Chess player lies in not allowing your Opponent to show you what he can do.
It’s quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess.
You can’t overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life.
I have great energy and I have great tasks ahead of me.
Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy.
This obligation to move can be a burden to a player without strategic vision.
The biggest problem I see among people who want to excel in chess – and in business and in life in general – is not trusting their instincts enough.
I’ve seen – both in myself and my competitors – how satisfaction can lead to a lack of vigilance, then to mistakes and missed opportunities.
Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before.
It’s not enough to be talented. It’s not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you use to reach your decisions.
Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature.
Putin recognized that if he could get enough money, everything would be under control.