Siegbert Tarrasch

Many have become Chess Masters, no one has become the Master of Chess.

Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was a leading chess player.

Quotes

• Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.
  • The Game of Chess (1931), Preface

• Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies, its peculiar charm. Intellectual productiveness is one of the greatest joys -if not the greatest one- of human existence. It is not everyone who can write a play, or build a bridge, or even make a good joke. But in chess everyone can, everyone must, be intellectually productive and so can share in this select delight. I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity for the man who has no knowledge of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.
  • The Game of Chess (As quoted by Fred Reinfeld in Tarrasch's Best Games of Chess)

• The rooks belong behind passed pawns, behind their own in order to support their advance, behind the enemy's in order to impede their advance.
  • Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914: International Chess Tournament, translated by Dr Robert Maxham, Caissa Editions, Yorklyn, DE, 1993, ISBN:0-939433-17-6—comment on ***Frank James Marshall vs Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg (1914), rd 3, Apr-24, p. 83, emphasis in original.

• Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic of the Chess player.
  • The Game of Chess (1931), Pt. 2 : The End Game, p. 79

• To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.
  • Response to a question as to What was the object of playing a gambit opening, as quoted in The Treasury of Chess Lore (1959) by Fred Reinfeld

• He who fears an isolated Queen's Pawn should give up Chess.
  • As quoted in The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played : 62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy (1965) by Irving Chernev, Game 18 : The Isolated Pawn, p. 81

• Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game.
  • As quoted in Cunning Exiles : Studies of Modern Prose Writers (1974), by Don Anderson and Stephen Thomas Knight, p. 41

• Many have become Chess Masters, no one has become the Master of Chess.
  • As quoted in Chess and Computers (1976) by David N. L. Levy, p. 40

• In tournaments it is not enough to be a connoisseur of chess; one must also play well.
  • As quoted in "The Bright Side of Chess" (1952) by Irving Chernev, p. 107

• Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis, but now he makes a fatal error - he begins to use his own head.
  • Concerning a World Chess Championship match, as quoted by William Ewart Napier in "The Bright Side of Chess" (1952) by Irving Chernev, p. 114

Misattributed

• The beauty of a move lies not in its appearance but in the thought behind it.
  • Aron Nimzowitsch, as quoted in Nimzovich : The Hypermodern (1948) by Fred Reinfeld

Quotes about Tarrasch

• From Anderssen I learned the art of making combinations; from Tarrasch I learned how advantageously to avoid making them.
  • Rudolf Spielmann, as quoted in "The Bright Side of Chess" (1952) by Irving Chernev, p. 107