Customer Reviews

Essential Chess Quotations

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.