The Chess Mind

Who said or wrote the following?

A good chess player who has lost a game is genuinely convinced that his failure is due to a mistake on his part, and looks for that mistake in the opening, forgetting that at each stage of the game there were similar blunders, that none of his moves was perfect. The mistake on which he concentrates his attention has been noticed simply because his opponent took advantage of it.

And, of course, discuss!

given below. But first, for those who didn't notice the quote the first time around, here it is again:

In the years when Tal was becoming World Champion, he had no understanding of chess. But how he could fight! Now he understands everything about chess, but he has not the same will-power...

The author of these lines was...Viktor Korchnoi*, in the context of an article explaining his loss to Anatoly Karpov in their 1974 Candidates Match. Here are some of the surrounding passages:

Yes, Karpov is a rare type of chess player, I would say. In his play first here and there one suddenly notices faults. But what enormous will-power! I have never seen in anyone such an ability to summon up his strength for a game. It's absolutely staggering! In a short space of time he puts in a colossal amount of work. With his will-power, one might say that he put a break on my play. This man is capable of putting into a game all that he possesses, all that he knows, he is a man who is able to impose his influence on an opponent. This demands enormous efforts on the part of he himself, and, as the example of Tal has shown, such a player may not last long. [DM: Korchnoi was definitely wrong if he thought Tal's fate would befall Karpov, who remained in the top 2 for almost all of the next 22 years.] Karpov has given so much, and within six months will have given even more. [DM: Korchnoi here anticipates the match with Bobby Fischer that was to occur in 1975.] I will once again cite the example of Tal. [DM: The original quote ensues.]

I sensed the influence of Karpov's will on me during the course of the whole match. As time trouble approached I felt physically how he summoned up everything against me, strained himself to the utmost, and watched me ever so closely....

It turns out that it is the factor of will-power that now plays the determining role in chess. For this reason it was Karpov who emerged the winner. Although I still consider myself superior in the creative sense, as regards will-power he is clearly my superior. Karpov was able to inflict his will on me, and he won.**

These excerpts may reveal more about Korchnoi than about Karpov, and there's probably an element of sour grapes present as well. Still, it's interesting and worth thinking about, as Karpov is not the only player known for his psychological intensity. There's Tal, as Korchnoi notes, but Fischer and especially Kasparov were known for emitting an almost palpable and destructive psychological force. Needless to say (I hope!), the excesses should not be emulated, but those with strong wills can, with training, surely utilize them to achieve their ends without attempting to crush the opponent psychologically. Difficult, but not impossible!

* Cited in Anatoly Karpov & Alexander Roshal, Chess is My Life (Pergamon, 1980), p. 183.

** Ibid., pp. 182-183.

Here's a fun one:

In the years when Tal was becoming World Champion, he had no understanding of chess. But how he could fight! Now he understands everything about chess, but he has not the same will-power..."

"Naisortep", who correctly guessed (or rather knew) that the following quote was from Mikhail Botvinnik:

I took with me several hundred of Fischer's games and set off to the Black Sea for two weeks to prepare for the match. Fischer's games did not provide any surprises with their strategic ideas. These were known to any experienced player from old games (even before Fischer). But the American grandmaster's tactical resourcefulness, his energy in carrying out his plans, and his striving for activity at the very first opportunity were staggering.

The plan was for Botvinnik to close his illustrious career in 1970 with an 18-game match with Bobby Fischer in the Dutch city of Leiden. Unfortunately, Fischer changed his mind and decided that he wouldn't play unless it was a match of unlimited duration, with the winner being the first player to win six games. Alas!

The part of the comment that claims Fischer created no new strategic ideas sounds a bit harsh, but if Botvinnik is reporting on his late 1969/early 1970 perspective, that evaluation may not be unreasonable. Fischer had only played one game in 1969, hadn't faced too many top class opponents since 1967, and he possessed an exceptionally limited opening repertoire at the time. It's at least possible that Botvinnik might have revised his opinion somewhat when speaking of the 1970-1972 Fischer - though not guaranteed. At any rate, the rest of his comment about Fischer is quite positive, so it would be wrong to view the comment as dismissive or Soviet propaganda.

It's time for another installment of our popular new feature, "Quotation Time". Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to identify the writer and discuss the quote:

I took with me several hundred of Fischer's games and set off to the Black Sea for two weeks to prepare for the match. Fischer's games did not provide any surprises with their strategic ideas. These were known to any experienced player from old games (even before Fischer). But the American grandmaster's tactical resourcefulness, his energy in carrying out his plans, and his striving for activity at the very first opportunity were staggering.

No one. (I did say it would be difficult!) Here's the quote again (first given in this post):

The first chess book that accidentally came into my hands with My System by Aron Nimzowitsch. It was hard to think of a worse choice! After all, in chess you must first learn to attack, and only then to defend, you must gain a mastery of tactics, and only then strategy. My System is a good book, only not for beginners. It is a textbook on positional play, and first you must learn to make combinations.

Many might agree, and perhaps some have even said something similar, but the actual quotation is from Russian grandmaster, former Candidate and endgame writer par excellence Yuri Averbakh, from the brief autobiographical essay in Averbakh's Selected Games (Cadogan, 1998), p. 9.

See if you can figure out who said this (difficult!) and discuss:

The first chess book that accidentally came into my hands with My System by Aron Nimzowitsch. It was hard to think of a worse choice! After all, in chess you must first learn to attack, and only then to defend, you must gain a mastery of tactics, and only then strategy. My System is a good book, only not for beginners. It is a textbook on positional play, and first you must learn to make combinations.

In this post, I presented the following Karpov quote, from his 1978 work My Best Games:

I always want to be first. If I were not a chess player, I would want to be first in whatever I was doing. And even more in chess - otherwise it would be silly to play seriously. If you are not first, it means you have been defeated. And who wants to be a loser?

There was an interesting discussion about this in the comments section, some of it focused on Karpov's last, somewhat harsh-sounding comment about being a "loser". That is part of what caught my eye in the first place, too, but yesterday I came across a second Karpov quotation, this time from a 1973 or 1974 article cited in Karpov's co-authored (with Aleksander Roshal) Chess is My Life (published in English in 1980; based on the content I'd say the original was written in 1978), page 122:

I always want to be first. If I weren't a chess player, all the same I would aim to be first at something. Well, let's say, not first, but one of the best. And what about in chess? In chess--even more so. Otherwise it is stupid to play seriously. And besides, if you are not first, it means you have lost. And who enjoys losing?"

These two quotes, though not their surrounding contexts in the two books, are almost identical. So this seems almost like a creed for Karpov, something like a motto or a purpose statement. The one obvious difference is the final statement in each case: the first quote sounds harsher and more sweeping: if you don't win, you're a "loser". The second quote doesn't describe the person, but only the event and its psychological effects.

Based on the strong similarities, I'm guessing that what we have here is a difference among translators, though any readers with access to Russian-language originals are welcomed, indeed invited, to say more. (For those who are curious, the translator of the "loser" passage was Hanon Russell of Chess Cafe fame, while "losing" was translated by Kenneth Neat.)

Here's an initial offering in what might develop into a regular theme on this blog: I'll present a quotation without attribution, and you're invited/challenged to identify its source. (Thoughtful) Comments on the quotation are welcome as well.

I always want to be first. If I were not a chess player, I would want to be first in whatever I was doing. And even more in chess - otherwise it would be silly to play seriously. If you are not first, it means you have been defeated. And who wants to be a loser?