Viktor Korchnoi Quotes

Bobby Fischer has an enormous knowledge of chess and his familiarity with the chess literature of the USSR is immense.

My job is to play chess, the game that I love. I achieve what I can in chess. That is what I focus on. Basically, I am always focused on playing the game, and this is important to me.

I started playing chess when I was five years old. I learned the moves from my mother, then worked with my father - and later trainers. My style became very technical. I sacrificed a lot of things. I was always hunting for the king, for the mate. I'd forget about my other pieces.

Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.

When I was about six, I saw my elder siblings play chess and pestered my mother into teaching me. Very soon, I was beating everyone at home, and they thought it would be good to join a club. So my sister would take me to the Tal chess club on Thursdays and weekends.

I play chess badly and I've been beaten by my 10-year old son.

I grew up with a father who taught me chess at the age of 6 or 7. He'd always beat me. Of course. I was a kid of 6 or 7. After he won, he'd look at me and say, 'It's good to be king.' And then he'd say, 'But you know what's even better? To rule the world.'

I barely know what my plans are for tomorrow, but I hope chess will remain a major part of my life.

It's easy to reach a certain level with chess, but it's very hard to reach the next level.

I have been doing this for eight years now so the negative things do not effect me as much as they did at the beginning.

Boris Vasilievich was the only top-class player of his generation who played gambits regularly and without fear ... Over a period of 30 years he did not lose a single game with the King's Gambit, and among those defeated were numerous strong players of all generations, from Averbakh, Bronstein and Fischer, to Seirawan.

Chess is a matter of daily training.

His teaching became a turning point in chess history: it was from Steinitz that the era of modern chess began. The contribution of the first world champion to its development is comparable with the great scientific discoveries of the 19th century.

My studies with Botvinnik brought me immense benefit, particularly the homework assignments which forced me to refer to chess books and to work independently.

The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant coaches.

I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement.

I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.

By this measure (on the gap between Fischer & his contemporaries), I consider him the greatest world champion

I study chess eight hours a day, on principle.

I feel that my chess strengths are still here, .. I believe I can still improve.

In a thousand years time this day will have existed for a thousand years to the day. And the ignorance of the whole world about what they've said today will have a date too.

I'm spending more time at this library in four days than I did at the Eureka College Library in four years.

It's not always enough to be brave, I realized years later. You have to be brave and contribute something positive, too. Brave on its own is just a party trick.

Often, in the Ruy Lopez, one must be patient, wait and carry on a lengthy and wearisome struggle.

The Jew has his anchorage not in place but in time, in his highly developed sense of history as personal context. Six thousand years of self-awareness are a homeland.