Bobby Fischer Chess Quotations

All that matters on the Chessboard is good moves

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

I felt that chess... is a science in the form of a game... I consider myself a scientist. I wanted to be treated like a scientist.

All I want to do, ever, is play chess.

Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego.

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

I have nothing to do with politics. I came here [Yugoslavia] to play chess and nothing else.

FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Champion title.

There's no one alive I can't beat.

You are never too old to play chess!

Let's play. I'm willing to play anywhere.

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

The Russians have fixed world chess.

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind.

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.

You can only get good at Chess if you love the game

Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

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

I love chess, and I didnt invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, or really its dead. A lot of people have come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. Im really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavour. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so its not degenerated down to memorisation and prearrangement like it is today.

I think it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically.

My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration

Chess demands total concentration

Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.

If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me

Blitz chess kills your ideas.

I like to make them squirm.

I add status to any tournament I attend.

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

I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it

Chess is like war on a board

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances

There are tough players and nice guys, and I'm a tough player

Tactics flow from a superior position

Its just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something

All my games are real

Different people feel differently about resigning

When I was eleven, I just got good.

Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it

My sister bought me a set at a candy store and taught me the moves.

Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam.

You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

There's no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it.

Normally we'd draw the curtain here, but I just wanted to see what he'd play next.

Computers are our only opponents that don't always have no excuse when losing against me.

They asked me what year it was, what month it was, etc. I easily answered these stupid questions.

It's little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine.

All I ever want to do is just play chess.

The system set up by F.I.D.E. ... Insures that there will always be a Russian world champion... The Russians arranged it that way.

Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.