The Chess Mind

revealed below. First, let's reprise the quotation:

A knowledge of the endgame is the magic key to the secrets of chess mastery.

The author of this quotation, which could have been said or written by many players, was the 7th world champion, Vasily Smyslov (in the de facto introduction to his modestly entitled Vasily Smyslov: Endgame Virtuoso. (Perhaps Russian readers know if this is his title or something the English publishers came up with, post-translation. Modest or not, it is an apt title.) There are any number of reasons that can be adduced in support of Smyslov's claim, one of which is given by the man himself a paragraph earlier: "The properties and peculiarities of the pieces are most clearly revealed in the endgame." I believe Capablanca said something like this as well, and I think that careful reflection will indicate that this is true. Developing this claim will have to wait for another time, but for readers who can produce supporting examples, the combox awaits you.

There are probably quite a few people who have said something like this, but presumably only one person put it exactly like this:

A knowledge of the endgame is the magic key to the secrets of chess mastery.

And that person was...?

Viswanathan Anand, who said: "Intuition is the first move I think of." Several readers were able to identify the quote, but no one took a bite on the second question from the initial post, which asked for comments on the content of the quotation. Is that both necessary and sufficient to a move's being intuitive? Can't intuition play a role deeper in calculations than the first move that comes to mind? And is 1.e4, for instance, really the product of intuition?

Unfortunately, this one is also googleable, but what can you do? Here it is:

Intuition is the first move I think of.

Who said it, and do you think the quip fully captures the nature of intuition?

The quotation was short but amusing:

You spent 20 hours on this?

This was said by Bobby Fischer, to James Sherwin, during the post-mortem of a Soltis-Sherwin game played in the 1963 New York State Open in Poughkeepsie. Fischer played in and won the event, the last Swiss System event of his career, with a 7-0 score, while Sherwin defeated the then up-and-coming Soltis on board three in the last round. The next day, to Soltis's surprise, when he came to the Marshall Chess Club, Sherwin was there and asked him if he wanted to go over the game. Here's how the story continues, as told by Andy Soltis in his book Bobby Fischer Rediscovered (pp.8-9):

We headed to the back room, to the "Capablanca table," to analyze. My second surprise came when Fischer materialized and sat down on my side of the board....Sherwin had been working on this opening (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 e5 Nd5) for months and had spent more than 20 hours on it. But no one had allowed him to show over the board what he'd found until I had the previous day. Even Fischer avoided the issue, playing 3 Nc3 against Sherwin in the previous year's U.S. Championship.

Sherwin presented the moves with a flourish, particularly 15...Bg1, his TN. He really did make moves he was proud of by pushing the piece with his pinky, as Fischer described in the first pages of My 60 Memorable Games. But when matters got interesting, around move 17, Fischer stopped the show by asking, "Whadya got on this?" and moved a White piece. Sherwin had an answer but it was demolished by a few quick Fischer follow-ups. This happened again a move later in the game, and then again. After the fourth time that he'd refuted a Sherwin move, Fischer asked, "You spent 20 hours on this?"

Ouch! (By the way, I was unable to find the game after checking Mega2008, chessgames.com and skimming both Chess Life and Chess Review on disc. Does anyone out there have it?)

This one might be tough if you haven't recently read it (or haven't Googled it - no cheating!), but then again, maybe not. Here it is:

You spent 20 hours on this?

Ljubomir Ljubojevic, and it probably explains why he hasn't played very much the past decade. Here's the quotation again:

I have won many games that have not made me happy; and when I lose, I am also not happy. My friends ask "so when are you happy?" That's the way chess is; you are happy only rarely; the rest is grief.

It's a rather sad quote, but one most competitors can identify with at some point in their lives, myself included. When it does occur, I suggest not playing serious games for a while and trying to remember why one started playing in the first place. Sometimes that's enough to do the trick. One good reason to play competitively (though not when misery predominates) is that it's only in competition that we are really forced to give it our all, to push ourselves to our creative limits. For that chance - the chance to produce something new, and to do something we didn't know we had in us - it is worth going into the battle.

Not a cheery quote, but one most of us can identify with at least some of the time:

I have won many games that have not made me happy; and when I lose, I am also not happy. My friends ask "so when are you happy?" That's the way chess is; you are happy only rarely; the rest is grief.