Bobby Fischer Games Quotations

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.

There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

If you don't win, it's not a great tragedy - the worst that happens is that you lose a game.

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

All my games are real

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.

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!

I don't recommend trying to cram a lot of long opening-move variations into your head. The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope so that you cramp your opponent's position and can attack weaknesses in his game.

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

Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his ooponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending.

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.

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

I don't care! I don't have to show anybody my games just because they're a big shot!

If you have seen one Alekhine game you've seen them all.

Yeah, there are too many Jews in chess. They seem to have taken away the class of the game. They don't seem to dress so nicely, you know. That's what I don't like.

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.