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Improvement & Advice

The average grandmaster makes three mistakes in every game.  The average chess player makes three mistakes on every move. – Garry Kasparov

Analyze a position for more than one day. Because your mental and emotional states change from day to day. Dr Jekyll may find what Mr. Hyde overlooks. – Chris Van Dyck

Tactics are it. People under 2000 shouldn’t study anything else. You need to work on the ability to count and calculate.  – Mig Greengard

The practical chessplayer knows that knowledge is not ability. Moreover, positional knowledge is quite separate from tactical strength, which is the predominating factor in one’s overall chess capability. There is no substitute for tactical competence. – Dan Heisman

Perceiving when a game reaches a crisis is one of the greatest skills in chess. – Ludek Pachman

Paradoxically, what one often needs in these 'positional' lines is a sharp tactical eye. – John Watson (on the English Opening)

You can permit yourself any liberty in the opening except the luxury of a passive position. – Grigory Sanakoev (World CC Champion)

A player who has not only mastered the openings but understands the direction and inherent value of these forms of play, is able, perforce, to play the middle and end games well. – Sigmund Miller

Even the greatest masters do not play startling, bizarre or 'brilliant' moves in the opening in an effort to be different, or to impress others with their ability to find extraordinary moves in commonplace positions. They are content to develop their pieces quickly, placing them on squares where they will operate to greatest effect, and then wait for Nature to take its course. When the time is ripe for combinative play, the odds are it will turn in favour of the player whose development is superior. – Irving Chernev

The art of treating the opening stage of the game correctly and without error is basically the art of using time efficiently. – Svetozar Gligoric

Do not be in a hurry to do something you can't undo. – Kelly Atkins

Having made a mistake or inexact move, you should not think "everything is lost", and be vexed, but quickly orientate yourself, and in the new situation, look for a new plan. – David Bronstein

Be aggressive, but play soundly. Don't take unnecessary chances. – Bruce Pandolfini

Never murder a man who is committing suicide. – Woodrow Wilson

Gaining victories by intuition alone is quite rare. As a rule, good intuition may assist us in obtaining good positions, but to actually cash the point it is vital to perform an accurate analytical calculation. – Amatzia Avni

To be creative, to be adventurous, to exhibit flair, is no excuse for not studying hard. The truth is exactly the opposite. You have to work constantly at your game, at your openings and endings. A deep analysis is necessary. Chess is not a fixed or static body of knowledge. It's dynamic. Even the books I've written on chess and the annotations I've made on my own matches are not set in stone. I keep updating them. There must be a constant questioning of old ideas, even one's own. – Garry Kasparov

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. – Frank Lloyd Wright

Everybody wants to be successful. But does everyone know what it takes to be successful - the consistency, the commitment? – Nick Saban

Play over every game you see in any magazine or book. I do mean "every" game. Give up sleep if you have to. Then play more games. – Keith Hayward

Once you master the "basics", then every time you learn how to play a new position, etc. that helps, too. So at first in chess one must master the generalities - once you do that then every specific you learn is another feather in your cap. If you don't know the generalities, then learning lots of specifics doesn't help. – Dan Heisman

What actually happens is best illustrated by looking at playing methods. First, by means of playing experiences and/or textbooks the player gets to know certain important general strategic and tactical rules; next, he learns to recognize and to handle exceptions to these rules - which in their turn grow into new, more refined rules; with new exceptions, etc. Finally, the player develops a "feeling' for the cases in which these already highly specialized rules can be applied. A player develops a feeling for those cases where there are winning chances and for the ways in which such chances must be exploited. In this manner the player's ability to classify and to apply appropriate treatment (in terms of thinking and playing methods) is steadily refined. – Adrian de Groot

The most important principle by which one should be guided in the middlegame is the principle of harmonious action of the pieces.  A free position with a loose arrangement of the pieces, which cannot be brought to harmonize with each other in the foreseeable future, is a bad position. In the full judgment of a position, the strength, the maneuvering capability and the harmonious interaction of the pieces must be considered. – Jose Raul Capablanca

Bishops for attack, knights for defense. – Source Unknown

When the queens come off the board, the character of the game shifts, and the master must change his demeanor as well as his technique. The Marines are no longer storming the hill. The endgame is chilly and minimalist, and to play effectively in this new terrain, the heedless attacker must quiet himself and be patient, precise, and perhaps a little detached. – Fred Waitzkin

It's far more important not to do anything stupid than to create brilliant combinations. – Larry Evans

In chess, attention is more important than concentration. – Frank J. Marshall

Even with a good position, a player, no matter how strong, cannot afford to relax his attention even for one move. – Jose R. Capablanca

So what is chess strategy anyway? And what is the difference between strategy and tactics?  The following skills are essential for success in chess: you have to be able exactly calculate variations, quickly find combinations, correctly estimate a position and make a plan of a game. The calculating and combinational abilities belong to tactics, whereas the skill of assessing the resulting positions and making of appropriate plans are the essence of strategy. – Aleksey Bartashinkov

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