Essential Chess Quotations [Paperback]

John C. Knudsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 24, 2000

Id rather have a pawn than a finger. Reuben Fine What The Reviewers Are Saying About Essential Chess Quotations Whether you want the funny, the thought-provokingor the inspiring this is a handy work to keep by the bedside for dipping into. ICCM Timothy Harding, Chess author and publisher. All very entertaining! Books like these belong to the treasury of chess. Recommended! John Elburg Book reviewer at the Chess Mail web site. John Knudsen brings together some of the best known quotes and epigrams of chess. From masters like Morphy to Fischer, and non-masters from Pascal to Letterman, all are witty sayings about this game we call chess. Essential Chess Quotations sums up what chess is and isnt to the players who have mastered the game and to the non-players who have given up on the game. The quotes about correspondence chess are especially revealing from players who either love or hate postal play. From the humorous to the philosophical,

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John C. Knudsen is the web master of a popular site devoted to correspondence chess located at: http://correspondencechess.com which averages several thousand visitors per month. He is an enthusiastic correspondence chess player (Postal Master, Correspondence Chess League of America) and writer. He has been published in IM Tim Harding's Chess Mail and the A SPCC's King's Korner. John is also a fervent collector of chess quotations and trivia, as well as being a correspondence chess game archivist.

Product Details

• Paperback: 56 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (March 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893652173
• ISBN-13: 978-1893652170
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,168,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a thin collection, July 19, 2006

By 

B. W. Kobes (Tempe, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essential Chess Quotations (Paperback)

There are about 170 quotations here, over about 50 pages, plus a lot of blank pages at the end, presumably so that you can add more on your own. You can read through this collection at a leisurely pace and be done in well under an hour.

If you have a scholarly interest you will be disappointed in the absence of any source citations, any dates, or any information (besides the name) to identify who is being quoted.

Too many of the quotes are flat or pedestrian -- e.g., "A forced variation with sacrifice" (by Mikhail Botvinnik, describing combinations); or "The object of the game of chess is to checkmate the king" (by "Unknown"); or "Creating an undesired stalemate is the height of stupidity" (by Anonymous).

There are few quotations here from literary figures who have written about chess or used chess imagery. No Vladimir Nabokov, for example, and no Stefan Zweig.

In my judgment the number of memorable quotations here that cannot be easily found on the Internet is too small to justify the purchase.

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent source for quotes from the world of chess., July 25, 1999

By 

Franklin Campbell ([e-mail]) (Michigan (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential Chess Quotations (Paperback)

John Knudsen is well known by the Internet chess community as webmaster of the popular The Correspondence Chess Place web site. He has also undertaken a number of projects to be of service to the chess community. Here he has attempted to provide a source for chess authors and other chess enthusiasts by gathering together a large collection of interesting and thought-provoking comments on chess by those most involved with it.

You won't find every famous quote here, but you will find a very nice selection of the best. For those interested in the human side of chess I can strongly recommend this little volume full of gems. Normally, to find good chess quotes you have to scan a large chess encyclopedia and just jump from one biography to another searching for something relevant. As a chess journalist I find this concise volume of essential quotes useful. As a lover of the game I find it vastly entertaining. This is one of the few books devoted to chess that you'll ever read cover to cover. I recommend it.