Hi there.
In this lecture, I'd like to talk about interesting chess quotations which revolve around attacks,
sacrifices and commendations from various world champions and other interesting players.
So Philidor, he wasn't an official world chess champion, but he laid a kind of foundation about the
pawns, calling pawns the sole of the game.
They alone form the attack and the defense.
So he felt like pawns of the soul of chess.
Now, later in the romantic era, out of Anson has a quotation which is basically attack, always attack.
So quite an enthusiast on the attack.
Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion, started to introduce rules about attack.
He said only the player with the initiative has the right to attack.
So the initiative calling the shots.
The opponents, for example, of Paul Morphy, were on the receiving end and they were having to parry
Fritz a lot of the time.
Paul Morphy had the initiative, especially in the open game.
It's very important.
He also said when you have an advantage, you are obliged to attack, otherwise you are endangered to
lose the advantage.
So he really fought.
It was an integral part of the game for converting advantages.
He also said a win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror.
So yeah, he didn't like and soundness, you know, even if it was seemingly beautiful, if it was unsound.
Technically, he didn't like it.
He also said a sacrifice is best refuted by accepting it.
That can be quite dangerous sometimes.
Sometimes it's bad to ignore it for a moment.
Well, it depends on the situation.
The attack is the process by by means of which you remove obstructions.
So that is something Laskar said.
It's like removing obstructions.
Liberating the pieces seems to be the implication there.
And, you know, maybe it's pawns, maybe it's your own pieces.
It could be just obstructions that your own pieces to get to the opponents.
KING Combination is a soul of chess.
So Alexander Alekhine, as we've seen, really loves his combinations, and he had to work hard, long
and hard to indicate that dangerous delusion that in the bad position, he could always or nearly always
conjure up some unexpected combination to extricate himself from the difficulties.
So, yes, Alekhine is a great basis of this course.
So it's very interesting, just to reiterate his his thoughts here in the context of other people do
not always be thinking of attack Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.
So Aaron Nimzowitsch so safeguarding the position prophylaxis, strengthening the position, it calls
that more prudence than attacking.
He's got a point.
Sometimes it is better to try and reduce the opponent's counterplay, for example, and you know, over
protection of E5 or just restrain the opponent's pieces.
Then, then maybe you can think about the attack later.
So safeguarding the position, no pawn exchanges, no foul opening, no attack.
So he kind of links up the pawns a bit like Philidor, that the pawns actually play a vital role in
attacking potential.
The first essential for an attack is the will to attack.
It's hard to go.
He's pretty witty.
I love go with quotations.
So yes, he has talked about these things.
It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men.
That's funny.
A queen sacrifice when even when Fatty Elvis always rejoices the heart of the chess lover.
And funny enough, the Queen sacrifice is touched on in a bit by Karpov.
We'll get to that.
So yes, people, even the absolute champions, they love the Queen sacrifice.
So Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position long before combinations
or mating attacks come into consideration at all.
So Max Alwa has said that.
So actually we all kind of trying to tap in in this course to alekhine's real genius.
So in fact, you know, this this is like one of the more important quotes out of all of this.
I know it's in very small font and I'll give you a text file as well.
You can open up to see these.
But yeah, this is what we're examining.
We're examining the real genius of Alexander Alekhine we want to focus in on how did he get these combinations
of making attacks.
It's in the preparation and the construction of a position first.
So what are the ingredients there in that process?
He also botvinnik the different, more champion with opposite kind of bishops.
The attacking side has in effect, an extra piece in the shape of his bishop.
Yeah, this is touching on Bishop without a counterpart, but both sides basically have a bishop, a
counterpart.
So Botvinnik observed that, you know, it's like in effect an extra piece.
They're on different sides of the row.
So if you have got the attack and you have got a different color bishop to the opponent or maybe the
opponent's got annoying, you know, your bishop's kind of a vicious line piece on that side of the
road, so to speak.
You know, that color of squares on the board which don't link with the other kind of so for the line
pieces the bishops in particular, the rooks, of course, can switch the different colors, but the
bishops are confined to one color.
So I will not hide the fact, the fact that I love to hear the spectators reaction after a sacrifice
of a piece of a pawn.
I don't think there is anything bad in such a feeling.
No artist or musician is indifferent to the reactions of the public.
So make out how.
Yeah, he really loves that artistic like or performance effects, you know, from the musician, he
said There are two types of sacrifices, correct ones.
And mine he didn't really didn't mind, you know, his flavor of sacrifice.
If it wasn't completely sound.
He was often introducing great complexity to the possession, which really confused opponents.
So one charming characteristic of many flank attacks I could mention is that they do not very often
need to simplification.
If you attack his parades, there are usually still opportunities left for initiating action in another
sector.
So.
Ben Lawson So he was one of the greats in the Fisher era, obscured by Fisher.
And it's interesting, he's a great attacking player.
Limbs are lost in attack and of course on his one be free with Larsen games brilliant player combinations
with a queen sacrifice are among the most striking and memorable So memorable so Anatoly Karpov expressed
this love of queen sacrifices.
As well then.
So, you know, the queen sacrifice is loved by a kind of Tasca as well as Karpov here, evidently.
So this is another one.
This is by Spassky, for example, Computer defends.
Well, but for humans, it's harder to defend than attack, particularly with the modern time control.
So, yes, the time control, the notions of less time is I've talked about that quite a bit in various
parts of this course and intros that especially in time pressure, if you're on the attack, it's easier
to be on the attack than offense.
One wrong move and you could be, for example, checkmated.
So he also said Spassky also said nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess.
Players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation.
So we're in Spassky again now.
Fischer I had to really squish this.
Sorry.
It says he said, this is not really about King, and he's more of a is very flexible in what he attacks.
I don't recommend trying to cram a lot of opening move variations into your head.
The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope
so that you cramp your opponent's position and can attack weaknesses in his game.
So he's not talking about the king necessarily just weaknesses in the game.
So the idea of getting flexibility with a strong pawn censor and it's interesting that he notes, it's
almost as if employing occupation is actually a little bit more important than control when he's emphasizing
a strong pawn center there.
But yeah, when you when you do actually occupy the center rather than control it, your pawns are kind
of locking in the opponent's pawns, quite neatly blockading, literally.
So it's actually impossible for the opponent's pawns to move.
One of the little downsides of controlling the center for a fight is that they could still move their
pawn.
In theory, it could be a sacrifice.
So it's a little bit more dangerous sometimes.
But if you've got a strong pawn center, you are completely sometimes locking down the opponent's pawns.
So, okay, so Kasparov indicated, I like to say that the attacker always has the advantage.
And he said attackers may sometimes regret bad moves, but it's much worse to forever regret an opportunity
that you allowed to pass by.
So the bigger opportunity of the attack in general is emphasizing it would be gutting to to miss that
opportunity.
So, as we say, so rare, it's rising staff here.
So, yeah, this is an interesting selection.
So I looked at different world champions and I gathered these together just in case.
There's some very interesting points.
I think they're all pretty interesting.
I really had a hard time trying to remove even one of them.
I kind of like all of them together, and they're a bit in historical order, you know, from, you
know, Philidor, pre romantic era Adolf Andersen, then.
STEIN It's like the crusher of the romantic era of science with the scientific theories about chess.
You're needing to get accumulate advanced years first to have that right to attack, and that's a necessity
to attack.
And then, you know, we're going into the Alekhine era and Nimzowitsch was around the Alekhine era
and Tosca and then, oh, Botvinnik, you know, we're going tell lost around that era.
Karpov.
Kasparov So yeah, it's a bit of a chronology here of these quotations, so I hope you found this interesting.
I thought it'd be just an interesting exercise to check them out and comment on them just briefly.
Okay.
Now of the first official World Chess Women, let's have a look at a concrete game example.
So if you look at Wiki for Steinitz, it's around 1873 that Steinitz had this transformation from an
all out attacking player, for example, like Adolf Andersson, you know, an all out attacking player
to a kind of more positionally, refined player.
And it's almost as if when you attack later, when you've accumulated the advantages, it's it's very,
very natural risk free.
So here Samuel Rosenthal against Wilhelm Steinitz in 1873, the Vienna tournament which Steinitz won
so E4 from Rosenthal and Steinitz played E5.
We have 9c489c69 F3 and now this is one of my systems in online speed chess nowadays.
Funny enough, I like this.
So d4 e tanks, knight tanks D four, Bishop G seven.
So I like to think so, but it has costs associated with it.
Why it could end up hack attacking you with h age five so ge7 we have bishops e4 d six both sides castle
canceled f4.
Now this does lock in the bishop on a free but is kind of dangerous sometimes this F5 we have a five
so that's a cool move driving that bishop to unpin the f7 pawn and now D5 another cool move causing
disruption, making it kind of unlikely that F5 is going to be effective.
So it takes Knight.
So you can see that already White's being positionally outplayed, so you can't really play like this
against a position, a strong player like Steinitz, It looks like, you know, there's a, there's
less harmony in White's position.
This is not a great way of playing attack Knight takes Queen sex and Black's got really active queen
down the center Very nice C free we.
Lot of pressure.
So, yes, an interesting position here.
We have Quincy, too.
And one of the points here of Quincy, too, you look at Black's friend here, it can be on of Bishop
E Ford to get this to avoid losing a bishop on D3.
So we have 94, though, and this is accumulating now.
Advantage Bishop, take C4.
Black has that light squared.
Bishop without a counterpart.
But what was the option if Bishop f2 c5 Bishop e4 Queen D sex.
This actually is about even technically that was an option, but Bishop takes C4 was played so an attacking
ingredient has been handed over.
But maybe there's not really an awareness that this is any sort of advantage and it's kind of hidden
when people talk about the bishop here.
I really like this aspect that this bishop is potentially dangerous online squares, but there's also
the harmony issue.
This bishop is locked in still.
We have Queen F2 C5 Knights driven back B six and this kind of makes sure that Bishop's kind of prisoner
in the position like E5.
So this looks impressive but it can be driven back with F6 later potentially.
Queen now bishop A6 hitting the rook rook f one and the knights driven back to a knight g4 If the knight
went forward, it's going to be trapped with this move, whereas the knight going after that.
So Knight takes we just take it's just trapped.
So the knight goes back, you see H five Knight F2 So it's not just a bishop round counterpart, it's
trying to nullify this knight.
Let's make sure it's not very useful.
So Queen F seven, I know F f5.
So this was actually good preparation for our focus now G5 and the Queen is holding that H five pawn
from from whence queen.
So okay, we have rook had one and now that is a beautiful bishop on diagonal also is great for Bishop
V7 so we've got really a lovely Bishop black counterpart and it makes this accumulating the ingredients
of attack as well, not just particular advantages.
This can be a really good attacking piece.
It's flexibility as well.
Rook D5 That is an interesting move.
More accurate, it seems, as Rook takes D1 and then rook E8, this is actually a more accurate way
of playing things where black is pretty dominant here.
So for example, this position that's pretty dominant, but Rook d5 we have rook takes D5 now, F5 becomes
weak after this, but if H for G4, that Knight's kind of not doing too much Bishop F4 and the rook
can take on F5 here anyway.
So Rook takes D5, Queen takes D5, we have rook de one, so F5 dropping off, this isn't a good thing.
So yeah, it's, it's just been destroyed once attack didn't have a proper foundation and.
And.
It's just been several down now.
It's a horrible position.
So we have Queen C7, but now just Bishop D5, that's a good place for the Bishop interfering with the
rook coming down as well to the seventh rank B frame.
But now Rookie ain't C4 and the bishop actually goes to F7 and we have Bishop C one.
It's too slow to consider coming down to the seventh rank f7 because Rook thinks E3 carries with it
a rookie one checkmate fret.
That's far too slow.
So we have the passive looking Bishop C one.
If Rook e1 Queen two is interesting.
So this position, for example here Black could just simply nab a pawn.
There's no problems here with that pin won't pin down.
It's interesting to note here, you know, Queen C two is one of the better moves.
Rook takes E three fouls.
Actually, this is not a good track.
It will be losing if it does this.
Sure.
Queen B one check and amazing.
But actually, can you see why this isn't a good move?
What does won't play have at some points.
Yeah.
One can find this check to get a key defensive common square.
And then rookie is the best f king H seven white can just take.
And then there's Brook, then there's Queen D one with a winning advantage.
So actually, if we went this way, rookie eight would be forced and we just end up with an equal position
here.
So okay.
Anyway, Bishop's C one we have rookie two, rook have one and now Queen C two.
This is very interesting.
Rook takes eight to was also strong.
So Queen C two is you can see that this bishop here is safeguarding the king as well as other things.
Okay.
This bishop's looking at c four right now.
Queen Geoffrey Queen 62.
But why?
It's really just tied down.
So we have Queen B eight checking H and Queen G three.
Why it's not doing much.
Bishop G six Now the Bishop's helping things potentially a bit more.
H for G four we have 93.
It's a very bad position if King H to Queen B one, for example here.
A5 What is White actually doing after five?
We can actually play F for here.
The point would be, well, it's pretty crushing.
But one of the points for example Bishop thanks for rookie one is strong this position with Bishop D4
and went to the world of pain whereas the knight gain that Bishop's covering that knight squishing that
knight so you see the bishop have really strong here as example.
So anyway Knight defray is playing queen takes B3 losing more material, Queen C seven and just giving
up the pace and the game So White resigns now Yeah just lost the piece for nothing and for example this
could be a quick checkmate.
So the point of this game, Steinitz, out of all of these quotations, he's the first official world
chess chairman which laid down the scientific theory.
So he can't be kind of emphasized enough.
In my view.
He paves the way for solid, accurate, attacking chess based on a good position.
So it's almost as if it's not really going out of your way to attack the opponent's king.
If you've built up solid advantages in the position it's getting, those attacking gradients recognize
them from afar.
If you recognize the attacking ingredients, you might be able to trade off, for example, material
sometimes that a pawn to get a bishop without counterpart.
All of those attacking ingredients mentioned in this course.
You know, sometimes you are doing a trade off between material or pawn structure to invoke them to
amplify the attacking ingredients by here.
Yeah, it just seems, you know, once attack was just crushed, it didn't have to happen.
It didn't have any effect to it.
It's about effective attacking chess.
There's almost we're talking a natural function of your position to attack later if you built up the
advantage.
Okay.
So I hope you enjoyed these quotations and thoughts from great players of the past.
And Todd Scott, of course, if you want very, very good quotations, WITI Tasco is one of the best
guides for quotations in general, one of my favorite guys in chess, even though he wasn't a world
chess champion.
Nimzowitsch another great favorite because of my system.
So you see quotations.
Some here are not from world champions but from players I really kind of admire as well.
Okay, that's very much.