By Frank ‘Boy’ Pestaño
Chessmoso
Thursday, December 4, 2014

CHESS is the world’s most popular game, played by (over 700) millions worldwide in homes, parks, clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments. There are more players and games played than all the other sports combined.

It is not just a game but a lot of things. Here are its different definitions.

Chess is everything—art, science, and sport.—Anatoly Karpov.

Chess is a fairy tale of 1,001 blunders. —Savielly Tartakower.

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind.—Bobby Fischer.

Chess is mental torture.—Kasparov.

Chess is like body-building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape. It is the same with your brain. Chess is a matter of daily training. —Kramnik.

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!—Tartakower.

The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations.

The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable—but teach him, inoculate him with chess. It is a curse upon man.—H.G. Wells.

I have always had a slight feeling of pity for a man who has no knowledge of chess.

Many have become chess masters—no one has become the master of chess.—Siegbert Tarrasch .

Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make man happy.—Savielly Tartakower.

Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer.—Albert Einstein.

Chess is a miniature version of life. To be successful, you need to be disciplined, assess resources, consider responsible choices and adjust when circumstances change.—Susan Polgar.

Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for.—Hans Ree.

Chess is the game which reflects most honor on human wit.—Voltaire.

Life is a kind of chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events. The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions.—Benjamin Franklin.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.—Blaise Pascal.

Chess is at the same time a game, a sport, a science and an art. And perhaps even more than that, This is something hard to explain to those who do not know the game well.

One must first learn to play it correctly in order to savor its richness.—Bent Larsen.

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.—George Bernard Shaw.

Chess is a great game. No matter how good one is, there is always somebody better. No matter how bad one is, there is always somebody worse.— I.A. Horowitz.

Full article here.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Tags: