Quotable Tartakower (1887 to 1956)

Quotable Tartakower (1887 to 1956)

"It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men."

"An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard."*

"The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made."

"The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."

"It is not enough to be a good player; you must also play well."

"The move is there, but you must see it."

"No game was ever won by resigning."

"I never defeated a healthy opponent." (This quotation refers to players
who blame an illness, sometimes imaginary, for their loss)

"Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do.
Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do."*

"Moral victories do not count."

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders."

"The great master places a Knight on e5; checkmate follows by itself."

"Every chessplayer should have a hobby."

"A game of chess is divided into three stages: the opening, where you think
you might be better; the middlegame, where you hope you might better;
and the ending, where you know you have lost."

* Two of my favorites. Yours?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savielly_Tartakower
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I've noticed some quotes are nearly identical by two different players. I've noticed it over the years.
"The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard."- Nimzowitsch

Originally posted by ChessPraxis
I've noticed some quotes are nearly identical by two different players. I've noticed it over the years.
"The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard."- Nimzowitsch

I like his quotation of Sammy Reshevsky,
that to be active means to be violent.

It is a trait Savielly Tartakower also finds in Blackburne.

And with his annotations to Rabar-Bajec (Sarajevo, 1951),
Tartakower becomes one of the few masters to point out that sometimes it is a better
strategy "to base the idea of attack on strong points rather than weak points."