Bobby Fischer Chess Quotes

I like the moment when I break a man's ego

Nothing eases suffering like human touch.

Your body has to be in top condition. Your chess deteriorates as your body does. You can’t separate body from mind.

That's what chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one.

Chess is life

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind.

All that matters on the chessboard is good moves.

I wanted to become world champion, and in this respect school couldn’t give me anything… It is better to be one of the strongest chess players in the world, than to be one of many thousands with a diploma.

I consider myself to be a genius who happens to play chess.

When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive. —BORIS SPASSKY

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

I give 98 percent of my mental energy to chess. Others give only 2 percent.

Draws make for dull chess, wins make for fighting chess.

What is an obsession? It is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. Religious fanatics are a prime example, as are those people who become enveloped in a political concept. Most of man’s progress has come about as a result of obsessions. The Wright brothers were not just tinkerers with an idea; their idea swallowed them up. Most leaders are obsessed with power or possessed by egos so large their only concern is their place in history. I have known writers obsessed with a single subject. Like Bobby Fischer and chess, anything and everything outside their subject seems meaningless. Any art form—music, painting, dance—is done best by those who are completely possessed by it. Such possession often borders on madness. This world would be a sorry place without such madmen.

Too many times, people don’t try their best. They don’t have the keen spirit; the winning spirit. And once you make it you’ve got to guard your reputation – every day go in like an unknown to prove yourself. That’s why I don’t clown around. I don’t believe in wasting time. My goal is to win the World Chess Championship; to beat the Russians. I take this very seriously.

Chess is life.

I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.” – Bobby Fischer

But to play in an international tournament of the caliber announced, he had to spend much more time at careful, precise study, analysis, and memorization. He stopped answering his phone, because he didn’t want to be interrupted or tempted to socialize—even for a chess party—and at one point, to be alone with the chessboard, he just threw some clothes in a suitcase, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, and checked into the Brooklyn YMCA. During his stay there, he sometimes studied more than sixteen hours per day. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, describes how people in all fields reach success. He quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin: “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chessplayers, criminals and what have you, the number comes up again and again [the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours of practice].” Gladwell then refers to Bobby: “To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

Worry about Fischer led the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Sports, which studied the psychology of sports, to appoint a Soviet grandmaster and theoretician, Vladimir Alatortsev, to create a secret laboratory (located near the Moscow Central Chess Club). Its mission was to analyze Fischer’s games. Alatortsev and a small group of other masters and psychologists worked tirelessly for ten years attempting to “solve” the mystery of Fischer’s prowess, in addition to analyzing his personality and behavior. They rigorously studied his opening, middle game, and endings—and filtered classified analyses of their findings to the top Soviet players.

A somewhat longer deferment was available, and totally legal, for college students. Bobby had dropped out of high school, but the New School for Social Research, a progressive college in New York City, was willing to accept his extraordinary chess accomplishments in lieu of traditional schoolwork. Alfred Landa, then assistant to the president, said that Fischer would not only be allowed to matriculate into the college, but be given a full scholarship. Bobby thought long and hard about the offer. One afternoon he started to walk to the New School to put in his application—and then stopped. His experience with schools had been distasteful, and perhaps that caused forebodings. Without giving an explanation, he refused to enter the school building, and he refused to apply for a student deferment.

Throughout history we read of Masters in every conceivable form of human endeavor describing a sensation of suddenly possessing heightened intellectual powers after years of immersion in their field. The great chess Master Bobby Fischer spoke of being able to think beyond the various moves of his pieces on the chessboard; after a while he could see “fields of forces” that allowed him to anticipate the entire direction of the match. For the pianist Glenn Gould, he no longer had to focus on notes or parts of the music he was playing, but instead saw the entire architecture of the piece and could express it. Albert Einstein suddenly was able to realize not just the answer to a problem, but a whole new way of looking at the universe, contained in a visual image he intuited. The inventor Thomas Edison spoke of a vision he had for illuminating an entire city with electric light, this complex system communicated to him through a single image. In all of these instances, these practitioners of various skills described a sensation of seeing more. They were suddenly able to grasp an entire situation through an image or an idea, or a combination of images and ideas. They experienced this power as intuition, or a fingertip feel.

But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled.

threnody through the postmortem

Except for a handful, chess players don’t have such illusions. The game has a severe analytic quality that makes self-deception difficult. Unlike the undiscovered poet who, despite the harsh criticism of his peers, lives on his fantasies for the day that he will be recognized as the next Dylan Thomas, even a young chess player can usually gauge his talent. When Josh was six, he played several games against a pudgy thirteen-year-old who was the top player on his high school team. He beat Josh every time, but a couple of the games were close, and afterwards the boy seemed gloomy about his performance. He explained that if he didn’t make significant improvement during the next year, he would wind up as just another wood-pusher. Despite his celebrity in school, he seemed to know that he didn’t have it. While

I was at the Manhattan Chess Club watching the tournament. Bobby Fischer won his adjourned game with Weinstein in fifty-eight moves. Larry Evans drew with Kalme and Reshevsky drew with Mednis.

Bobbie Fischer was considered the greatest chess player who ever lived, and he ended up losing complete touch with reality. John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who developed game theory, was debilitated by paranoid schizophrenia. There are

He'd set up a board next to his bed, and the last thing he did before going to sleep and the first thing he did upon awakening was to look at positions or openings. So many peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, bowls of cereal, and plates of spaghetti were consumed while Bobby was replaying and analyzing games that the crumbs and leavings of his food became encrusted in the crenellated battlements of his rooks, the crosses of his kings, the crowns of his queens, and the creases in the miters of his bishops. And the residue of food was never washed off. Years later, when a chess collector finally took possession of the littered set and cleaned it up, Bobby's reaction was typically indignant: "You've ruined it!

After about a year, though, he concluded that the amount of time he was spending practicing the accordion was impinging on his chess studies. “I did fairly well on it for a while,” Bobby said, looking back, “but chess had more attraction and the accordion was pushed aside.

How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game but chess.” WARREN BUFFETT

Many of the one-liners teach volumes. Some summarize excellence in an entire field in one sentence. As Josh Waitzkin (page 577), chess prodigy and the inspiration behind Searching for Bobby Fischer, might put it, these bite-sized learnings are a way to “learn the macro from the micro.” The process of piecing them together was revelatory. If I thought I saw “the Matrix” before, I was mistaken, or I was only seeing 10% of it. Still, even that 10%—“ islands” of notes on individual mentors—had already changed my life and helped me 10x my results. But after revisiting more than a hundred minds as part of the same fabric, things got very interesting very quickly. For the movie nerds among you, it was like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects: “The red door knob! The fucking Kobayashi coffee cup! How did I not notice that?! It was right in front of me the whole time!” To help you see the same, I’ve done my best to weave patterns together throughout the book, noting where guests have complementary habits, beliefs, and recommendations. The completed jigsaw puzzle is much greater than the sum of its parts.

He’d set up his board on a chair next to his bed, and the last thing he did before going to sleep and the first thing he did upon awakening was to look at positions or openings. So many peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, bowls of cereal, and plates of spaghetti were consumed while Bobby was replaying and analyzing games that the crumbs and leavings of his food became encrusted in the crenellated battlements of his rooks, the crosses of his kings, the crowns of his queens, and the creases in the miters of his bishops. And the residue of food was never washed off. Years later, when a chess collector finally took possession of the littered set and cleaned it up, Bobby’s reaction was typically indignant: “You’ve ruined it!

Soviet Chess Federation had four million members, and playing chess wasn’t just required in elementary schools but compulsory in after-school activities;

I'll play a lot, stake matches. Not like the Russians. They win the championship and then hide for three years.” — Bobby Fischer, in 1971. Fischer, of course, did not keep his word and hid for 20 years instead of three.

Such warnings are not to be taken lightly, and it behooves every chess parent, chess organizer, and chess instructor to be mindful of the game’s destructive power—to work on tapping into chess’s positive Benjamin Franklin forces while avoiding its corrosive Bobby Fischer forces.

Chess contains no hidden information and very little luck. The pieces are all there for both players to see. Pieces can’t randomly appear or disappear from the board or get moved from one position to another by chance. No one rolls dice after which, if the roll goes against you, your bishop is taken off the board. If you lose at a game of chess, it must be because there were better moves that you didn’t make or didn’t see. You can theoretically go back and figure out exactly where you made mistakes. If one chess player is more than just a bit better than another, it is nearly inevitable the better player will win (if they are white) or, at least, draw (if they are black). On the rare occasions when a lower-ranked grand master beats a Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, or Magnus Carlsen, it is because the higher-ranked player made identifiable, objective mistakes, allowing the other player to capitalize.

Bobby Fischer, the great chess champion, once said, “Winning in this game is all a matter of understanding how to capitalize on the strengths of each piece and timing their moves just right.

Research from Brunel University shows that chess students who trained with coaches increased on average 168 points in their national ratings versus those who didn’t. Though long hours of deliberate practice are unavoidable in the cognitively complex arena of chess, the presence of a coach for mentorship gives players a clear advantage. Chess prodigy Joshua Waitzkin (the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer) for example, accelerated his career when national chess master Bruce Pandolfini discovered him playing chess in Washington Square Park in New York as a boy. Pandolfini coached young Waitzkin one on one, and the boy won a slew of chess championships, setting a world record at an implausibly young age. Business research backs this up, too. Analysis shows that entrepreneurs who have mentors end up raising seven times as much capital for their businesses, and experience 3.5 times faster growth than those without mentors. And in fact, of the companies surveyed, few managed to scale a profitable business model without a mentor’s aid. Even Steve Jobs, the famously visionary and dictatorial founder of Apple, relied on mentors, such as former football coach and Intuit CEO Bill Campbell, to keep himself sharp. SO, DATA INDICATES THAT those who train with successful people who’ve “been there” tend to achieve success faster. The winning formula, it seems, is to seek out the world’s best and convince them to coach us. Except there’s one small wrinkle. That’s not quite true. We just held up Justin Bieber as an example of great, rapid-mentorship success. But since his rapid rise, he’s gotten into an increasing amount of trouble. Fights. DUIs. Resisting arrest. Drugs. At least one story about egging someone’s house. It appears that Bieber started unraveling nearly as quickly as he rocketed to Billboard number one. OK, first of all, Bieber’s young. He’s acting like the rock star he is. But his mentor, Usher, also got to Billboard number one at age 18, and he managed to dominate pop music for a decade without DUIs or egg-vandalism incidents. Could it be that Bieber missed something in the mentorship process? History, it turns out, is full of people who’ve been lucky enough to have amazing mentors and have stumbled anyway.