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I Would Not Draw Definitive Conclusions From That. If We Look At South And North Korea, It Is Pretty Hard To Believe That We're Dealing With The Same People. Half Of The People Are Forced To Live In A Concentration Camp; The Other Have Created One Of The Most Dynamic Economies In The World.

-Garry Kasparov

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I Would Not Draw

Garry Kasparov

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I Would Not Draw Definitive Conclusions From That. If We Look At South And North Korea, It Is Pretty Hard To Believe That We're Dealing With The Same People. Half Of The People Are Forced To Live In A Concentration Camp; The Other Have Created One Of The Most Dynamic Economies In The World.

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Chess Strength In General And Chess Strength In A Specific Match Are By No Means One And The Same Thing.

I Have Great Energy And I Have Great Tasks Ahead Of Me.

His Teaching Became A Turning Point In Chess History: It Was From Steinitz That The Era Of Modern Chess Began. The Contribution Of The First World Champion To Its Development Is Comparable With The Great Scientific Discoveries Of The 19th Century.

I'm Not In Favour Of A Regulation-free World. I Align Myself With Teddy Roosevelt, Who Broke Up The Trusts. Regulation Is Necessary, But It Should Be In Favour Of The Consumer, The Citizen, And Freedom.

This Obligation To Move Can Be A Burden To A Player Without Strategic Vision.

At The Northern Border Of Azerbaijan, Daghestan By No Means Contributes To The Democratization Of The Caucasus.

If You Wish To Succeed, You Must Brave The Risk Of Failure.

Any Experienced Player Knows How A Change In The Character Of The Play Influences Your Psychological Mood.

We Have To Always Look Ahead Enough Moves To Be Well Prepared, Even For Victory!

Donald Trump Is A Catalyst. People Care Now In A Way They Didn't. The American Institutions Were Rusting; Now They Are Being Revitalised. Trump Is A Lightning Rod. They Are Getting Engaged And The American Liberal Media That Spent Too Much Time On Pc Issues Can Focus On Vladimir Putin And Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Inevitably The Machines Must Win, But There Is Still A Long Way To Go Before A Human On His Or Her Best Day Is Unable To Defeat The Best Computer.

With Some Reservation, It Can Be Said That Certain Democratic Elements Are Present In Georgia As Well; But It Is Very Clear That The Government Has To Pronounce Its Explicit Wish To Resign Before Something Is Going To Happen. On The Western Front, Only Belarus Is An Exception.

A Grandmaster Must Memorize Thousands Of Chess Duels In His Head, As These Are For Him What Words Of The Mother Tongue Are To The Ordinary People And What Notes Are To A Musician.

In Chess, Bigamy Is Acceptable But Monarchy Is Absolute.

In Armenia, The Power De Facto Belongs To Those Who Opted To Take Violent Action In Karabakh. We Are Dealing With A Military Dictatorship That Utilizes Some Kind Of Democratic Procedures.

I Say We Should Praise Donald Trump For Existing And For Winning, Because It Has Woken People Up. For Many Years, I Have Been Trying To Say To Europeans, And Especially To Americans, That Vladimir Putin Is A Problem For The World. And They Have Swatted Me Away. "it's Your Problem, We Have Our Democracy." Suddenly, Because Of Trump, They Are Learning About Separation Of Powers, Independence Of The Judiciary And That Ronald Reagan Was Right When He Said, «freedom Is Never More Than One Generation Away From Extinction».

Chess Is One Of The Few Arts Where Composition Takes Place Simultaneously With Performance

Barack Obama Took Over After Vladimir Putin's First Aggression, In Georgia. In 2009, He Did The Reset Policy Because They Had These Stupid Ideas About Former President Dmitry Medvedev. They Thought He Would Be The Leader, Not Putin. Everyone Played This Game With Medvedev As Their Bet, Berlin, Paris, London, The Idea Of Smoothly Transferring To Something More Acceptable. It Was Always A Charade, A Putin Project To Solidify His Power And Come Back After Four Years Of Nominal Occupation Of The Office By Medvedev.

With This Mistake I Deprived Myself Of The Possibility To Make A Contribution To The Treasury Of Chess Art.

Chess Is Life In Miniature. Chess Is Struggle, Chess Is Battles

The Highest Art Of The Chess Player Lies In Not Allowing Your Opponent To Show You What He Can Do.

[vladimir] Putin's Russia Is Only Indirectly Concerned With The Conflict Between Armenia And Azerbaijan As A Means Of Maintaining Its Sphere Of Influence. I Doubt That Russia Will Meddle. Moreover, I'm Quite Sure That Ilham Aliyev Won't Decide To Carry Out Any Serious Action - It's Not In His Interest. He's Learned His Lesson Very Well - Threaten To Take Action But Never Act On Such Words.

I Think Russians Today Have A Distorted Picture Of Capitalism, Liberal Democracy And Market Economy.

The Situation In Georgia Is Determined By The Breakaway Regions Abkhazia And South Ossetia. While We Must Acknowledge The Reforms Initiated By Mikheil Saakashvili That Drastically Lowered The Level Of Corruption And Authoritarian Structures In The Georgian State, Under The Above-mentioned Circumstances, The Ruling Elite Must Keep A Firm Grip On The Country.

Rosneft, For Instance, Was Mainly Built Upon Capital Stolen From [jailed Oligarch Mikhail] Khodorkovsky's Company, But The Ipo Was Successful With Many Western Corporations Investing In It. This Means That It Is Extremely Difficult To Detect These Assets In Their Pure Form.

Weaknesses Of Character Are Normally Shown In A Game Of Chess.

History Tells You If Dictators Are Not Stopped In Time, They Cause More Damage.

We Have A Saying That A Stranger's Soul Is Like A Black Box. Which Is Why I Would Not Want To Analyze [vladimir] Putin's Psychological Motivations.

Like Dvoretsky, I Think That (all Other Things Being Equal), The Analytical Method Of Studying Chess Must Give You A Colossal Advantage Over The Chess Pragmatist, And That There Can Be No Certainty In Chess Without Analysis. I Personally Acquired These Views From My Sessions With Mikhail Botvinnik, And They Laid The Foundations Of My Chess-playing Life.

You're Always Going To Have Dangerous, Disaffected People In Any Society, And Some Will Be Violent. Increasing Prosperity And Reducing Inequality Won't Solve That Completely. But Having Big, Positive Dreams And A Society That Makes It Possible To Achieve Those Dreams Is What We Must Strive For.

For Us To Make Sure That We Have Full Lives, Meaningful Lives, We Will Have To Elevate Our Unique Human Qualities. And I Think We Know Now, We Can See Clearly What Makes Us Different From Machines. And That's Why The Future Is Enhanced Humanity.

I'm Looking Forward To The Day When My Country Is Saved - And The Current Winner Becomes A Loser.

Looking Forward

The Stock Market And The Gridiron And The Battlefield Aren't As Tidy As The Chessboard, But In All Of Them, A Single, Simple Rule Holds True: Make Good Decisions And You'll Succeed; Make Bad Ones And You'll Fail.

Intelligent Machines Will Continue That Mechanization Process, Taking Over The More Menial Aspects Of Cognition And Elevating Our Mental Lives Towards Creativity, Curiosity, Beauty, And Joy. These Are What Truly Makes Us Human.

Millions Like Me In Russia Want A Free Press, The Rule Of Law, Social Justice, And Free And Fair Elections. My New Job Is To Fight For Those People And To Fight For These Fundamental Rights.

It's True That In Chess As In Politics, Fund-raising And Glad-handing Matter.

By This Measure (on The Gap Between Fischer & His Contemporaries), I Consider Him The Greatest World Champion

So Many Dictators Trying To Blackmail The Free World Because They Have No Way To Compete On Ideas, Innovation Or Creativity. The Cold War Was Two Competing Visions Of The Future. I Was Always Anti-communist But It Was An Idea At Least, An Alternative Idea. We Do Not Have A Competing Vision For The Future Because The Ideals Of These Dictators Are In The Past. They Are Time Travellers. They Need Confrontation And Destruction To Survive. The Problem Is, Many People In The Free World Are Sympathetic To Vladimir Putin.

Ratings Are King And The Money Keeps Flowing, And Partisanship Is So Strong Today That People Rely On A Few Sources Absolutely Instead Of Thinking Critically. So Even Being A Cheerleader For A Gameshow-host President With No Respect For The Rule Of Law Or America's Reputation In The World May Not Be A Career-ending Move.

The Growth Of Violent Extremism Is Partly A Consequence Of How The Developed World Has Become Complacent And Defensive About Its Own Greatness And Ambition.

The Sanctions And Travel Restrictions Would Have To Be Far More Comprehensive To Be Truly Painful For [vladimir] Putin And His Inner Circle. And The New Middle Class Should Also Feel The Effects Of What He Is Doing. For Instance, We Should Ask Those Who Wish To Enter The Eu Whether They Have Visited Illegally Occupied Crimea In The Last Few Months And, If The Answer Is "yes," Deny Them A Visa.

The Real Political Life In Russia Unfortunately Is Not In The Parliament But On The Streets And In The Media.

If We Look At Statistical Data, We See That Protestant Countries In Terms Of Economic Development Are More Successful Than Those Observing Catholicism.

What I Am Trying To Figure Out In My Preface Is How Romans Could Operate Without The Simple Items - Maps - That Are Necessary For Running Such A Huge Empire.

That Machines Will Surpass Us In Intelligence Is Inevitable. What It Means Is Unknowable. Will They Be Sentient? What Will They Care About In The Sense That Determines Our Human Motivations? All The Theorizing By The Experts And Non-experts Makes For Interesting Conversations And Dramatic Headlines, But It's More Likely We Will Be Surprised By How Our Technology Develops And How It Is Used, As We So Often Are.

In Chess The Rules Are Fixed And The Outcome Is Unpredictable, Whereas In Putin's Russia The Rules Are Unpredictable And The Outcome Is Fixed.

The International Repercussions Were Shattering To Some Extent - There Is No Intention To Repeat Operations Of Such Kind In The Future.[viktor] Yanukovych's Electoral Victory Clearly Demonstrated That There Are No Pro-russian Politicians In The Ukraine, Just Ukrainian Politicians.

Caissa, The Goddess Of Chess, Had Punished Me For My Conservative Play, For Betraying My Nature.

Donald Trump Envies Anyone Who Can Do Things He Can't.

Ukraine Had Quite Serious Impact On The Many Russians. They Could See That Ordinary People In Ukraine Which Is A Bordering State, Very Close To Russia, The People Of This State Are, They Didn't Want To Tolerate Anymore The Power Abuse By Ukrainian Officials.

All Women Are Inferior To Men.

It's Quite Difficult For Me To Imagine My Life Without Chess.

The Worst Enemy Of The Strategist Is The Clock. Time Trouble... Reduces Us All To Pure Reflex And Reaction, Tactical Play. Emotion And Instinct Cloud Our Strategic Vision When There Is No Time For Proper Evaluation.

The Downfall Of Democratic Institutions In Russia Doesn't Add To The Self-confidence Of Either [vladimir] Putin Or His Friends, As The Loss Of Power Could Lead To Repercussions In Russian Society.

Self Confidence

Ultimately, What Separates A Winner From A Loser At The Grandmaster Level Is The Willingness To Do The Unthinkable.

Once I Spoke About This Subject Among A Group Of English Intellectuals. One Of Them Was A Professor On Roman Law At One Of The Leading British Universities. I Asked Him,what Was The Official Language Of The Byzantine Empire? He Said, Maybe Sometime In The Sixth Or The Seventh Century.the Justinian Codex, The Rule Of Law In The Byzantine Empire Which Was Produced By Emperor Justinian, It Was Written In Latin.and He Looked At Me ,he Knew That I Knew Already That The Only Original Copy Was Found In The Beginning Of The Sixteenth Century.

Many So-called Pragmatists Want Nothing To Do With Space Exploration Or Other Kinds Of Ambitious Endeavours That Don't Have A Clear Payoff. This Mentality Is Hugely Damaging To Our Success As A Civilization. Our Desire To Understand The Universe Is Kindled By Curiosity And Wonder, And This Has Fuelled Countless Scientific Breakthroughs.

Many Politicians In The West Cling To The Notion Of A Partnership With Russia. They Want To Include [vladimir] Putin, Make Compromises And Constantly Negotiate New Deals With Him. But History Has Taught Us That The Longer We Pursue Appeasement And Do Nothing, The Higher The Price Will Be Later On. Dictators Don't Ask "why?" Before They Seize Even More Power. They Ask: "why Not?"

To Play Chess On A Truly High Level Requires A Constant Stream Of Exact, Informed Decisions, Made In Real Time And Under Pressure From Your Opponent. What's More, It Requires A Synthesis Of Some Very Different Virtues, All Of Which Are Necessary To Good Decisions: Calculatioñ, Creativity And A Desire For Results. If You Ask A Grandmaster, An Artist And A Computer Scientist What Makes A Good Chess Player, You'll Get A Glimpse Of These Different Strengths In Action.

It Was An Impressive Achievement, Of Course, And A Human Achievement By The Members Of The Ibm Team, But Deep Blue Was Only Intelligent The Way Your Programmable Alarm Clock Is Intelligent. Not That Losing To A $10 Million Alarm Clock Made Me Feel Any Better.

There Is No Doubt That [vladimir] Putin Is Responsible For This Crime, Whether Or Not He Gave The Order To Commit The Murder [of Boris Nemtsov] Himself. Putin Created The Conditions And Atmosphere That Have Made This Kind Of Thing Possible.

We Have Again A Strange Gap. We Have The Big Scientific Discoveries Around The Second, Third Century Bc. Then We Have An Invention Of The So-called Arab System, The Positional System Of Counting With Zero Dated To The Eighth Or Ninth Century.

Remember That The Machine Is There To Help You, Because At The End Of The Day, You're Not Playing Freestyle Chess, Advanced Chess, Human-plus-machine. If You Are Playing Against Other Humans, It's About Winning The Game. The Machine Will Not Be Assisting You, Unless You Are Cheating Of Course. And Since The Machine Is Not There, You Have To Make Sure That Everything You Learn From The Computer Will Not Badly Affect The Way You Play The Real Game.

From Ukraine To Syria, He [vladimir Putin] Is Behaving Like The World's New General And Celebrating Victories, While The American President Sits On The Sidelines And Europe Sleeps. The West's Behavior Toward Putin Is Political And Moral Capitulation.

Botvinnik Tried To Take The Mystery Out Of Chess, Always Relating It To Situations In Ordinary Life. He Used To Call Chess A Typical Inexact Problem Similar To Those Which People Are Always Having To Solve In Everyday Life.

[romans] Never Made Any Improvements On The Cavalry. And Amazingly, When You Read The Sources, They Couldn't Make It Because Stirrups Were Not Known In Europe. For Hundreds Of Years, The Romans Couldn't Make A Cavalry Which Proved To Be Extremely Effective.

Though I Would Have Liked My Chances In A Rematch In 1998 If I Were Better Prepared, It Was Clear Then That Computer Superiority Over Humans In Chess Had Always Been Just A Matter Of Time.

Revenge For A Terror Attack Is Ideal For Putin's Model. His Propaganda Machine Will Be Filled With Scenes Of Crash Victims If [vladimir] Putin Sees The Need For A Larger War To Stoke His Domestic Support Again As The Russian Economy Teeters.

In My Opinion, This Vicious Circle Will Be Broken By History Itself. Because Sticking To The Current Form Of Governance, Which Is To Say Guaranteeing The Survival Of [vladimir] Putin's Regime, Will Necessarily Lead To The Demise Of Russia Within Its Present Borders.

I Am Between The Tories And The Lib Dems. I Am Fiscally Conservative. I'm For Strong Foreign Policy, But Socially Very Liberal. I Am Not Religious. That Makes Me Feel Uncomfortable With American Republicans. I Don't Feel At Home Anywhere, Really. Labour Under Tony Blair Was Not Something I Would Associate Myself With, But I Didn't Have A Big Problem With It. I Have To Make A Choice Between Fiscal And The Role Of The State And Social Freedom.

I Think Russian People Are Learning That Democracy Is Not An Alien Thing; It's Not A Western Invention.

The Soviet Union Tried To Sell A Set Of Ideas, Very Left Wing, And Focus On So-called Peace. Vladimir Putin Doesn't Care Who Helps Him To Push His Agenda. He Is Equally Comfortable With The Politics Of Nigel Farage And Corbyn In Britain, Le Pen And Jean-luc Mélenchon In France. Whether Far Left Or Nationalist, He Doesn't Care, As Long As They Support Chaos And Destruction And The Undermining Of Existing Institutions.

The Only Game [vladimir] Putin Can Play Is To Establish A Lifelong Dictatorship In The Country, At First De Facto And Finally Also De Jure. In This Case, [dmitri] Medvedev Is An Interim Figure Bound To Assist Putin In His Plan To Guarantee A Smooth Transition To A New Term In Office.

The Loss Of My Childhood Was The Price For Becoming The Youngest World Champion In History. When You Have To Fight Every Day From A Young Age, Your Soul Can Be Contaminated. I Lost My Childhood. I Never Really Had It. Today I Have To Be Careful Not To Become Cruel, Because I Became A Soldier Too Early.

Putin Can't Afford To Leave The Office Because He Will Be In Real Danger Of Being Prosecuted For Things He And His People Did During Their Stay In Power.

Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

I'm Not Saying That George W. Bush Did Everything Right. But Even If You Take A Skeptical View Of His Iraq War, [barack] Obama Made The More Serious Error Of Withdrawing His Troops From Iraq Early.

We Must Be Optimistic About The Future Because It's A Self-fulfilling Prophecy. If We Are Creative And Ambitious, Intelligent Machines Will Liberate Us And Be As Profound A Boon To Our Prosperity As Electricity. If We Are Fearful, And Fail To Press Ahead, We Could Be Overwhelmed By Automation And Inequality.

Many People Think They Are Too Refined, Or Too Rational, To Entertain A Real Sense Of Wonder In Themselves Or In Others. This Is Preposterous To Me, Since The Natural World Is Full Of Endless Wonders, Both On Earth And Especially In Space, No Matter How You Think It Was Created.

Boris Vasilievich Was The Only Top-class Player Of His Generation Who Played Gambits Regularly And Without Fear ... Over A Period Of 30 Years He Did Not Lose A Single Game With The King's Gambit, And Among Those Defeated Were Numerous Strong Players Of All Generations, From Averbakh, Bronstein And Fischer, To Seirawan.

If People Are Being Left Behind, Impoverished Economically Or Even Culturally, They Will Always Be Easily Targeted By Demagogues Of Any Stripe, Exploiting Their Hate And Fear And Making Impossible Promises. That Impoverishment Is More Likely If We Fight A Doomed Battle Against Automation And New Technology, When What Those People Need Most Is The Ambitious New Tech That Is The Only Proven Way To Create Sustainable Industries And Jobs.

Anything That We Know How We Do, Machines Will Do Better. Now, The Key Element Of This Phrase Is, "we Know How We Do It." Because We Do Many Things Without Knowing Exactly How We Do Them. So This Is The Area Where Machines Are Vulnerable, Because It Still Has To Learn From Some Kind Of Experience. It Needs Something - At Least The Rules Of The Game. You Have To Bring In Something That Will Help The Machine To Start Learning. It's Like Square One. If There's Nothing There, If You Can't Explain It, That's A Problem.

Where Do Poor Young People Turn? Isis Has A Mission For You To Change The World! It's A Horrific Vision, But It's A Vision. Perhaps For White Supremacists, You Can Add The Additional Storyline That They Believe That They Are Having Something Taken From Them By Outsiders, By Immigrants. Not Only Are They Losing Out And Bored, But They Think They Are Victims And That They Know Who Is Responsible.

Vladimir Putin Likes Donald Trump Because He Supports This View Of The World, That The Big Guys Can Carve It Up, Sit And Talk About The World, Carve Up The Countries, Shape Borders. For Putin, Treaties, Alliances, Nato, The Eu Are Stumbling Blocks.

I’ve Seen - Both In Myself And My Competitors - How Satisfaction Can Lead To A Lack Of Vigilance, Then To Mistakes And Missed Opportunities.

My Life Is Split In Three Parts; I Don't Know The Percentage. One Could Be Called "chess" - The Kasparov Chess Foundation, Promoting The Game, Training Young Players, Playing On The Internet, Sometimes Exhibitions. The Second Area Would Be "writing" - Books, Articles, Twitter, Facebook. And Then "political Activity" - Fighting For Human Rights And Democracy, So Tv, Interviews, Speeches.

[vladimir] Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position.

The Only Way To Fail For Me Is Just Not To Try.

There Is No One That Can Share Your Responsibility. It It Is Your Responsibility You Must Carry It On And You Must Be Responsible For Your Actions. At The End Of The Day We All Are Being Challenged, Sooner Or Later, By Our Destiny. And It's Up To Us To Make All The Difference In This Life. If Not You, Who Else?

Vladimir Putin Is The Bigger Danger Than Donald Trump Because Trump Can Be Dealt With Within American Democracy. There Is An Independent Judiciary. He Cannot Overrule American Courts. He Will Have To Play By Some Rules. He Will Do Damage Certainly, But To Do Real Damage I Think He Is Too Weak. Putin Is Aggressive Wherever He Can Be. In Europe, In Germany, Putin Will Not Stop.

To My Surprise I Found That When Other Top Players In The Precomputer Age (before 1995, Roughly) Wrote About Games In Magazines And Newspaper Columns, They Often Made More Mistakes In Their Annotations Than The Players Had Made At The Board.

My Nature Is That I Have To Excite Myself With A Big Challenge.

We See Threats To Liberal Democracy Coming From Lots Of Directions. We Have To Create Something New, A Common Response, Because In So Many Places - The Uk, France, Germany - Ultranationalists And The Far Left Threaten The Free Market And Liberal Democracy.

It Is Quite Clear, However, That There Won't Be Any Real Changes With The Current Clan Structure Having Seized Power In The Course Of The Karabakh Conflict.

Vladimir Putin Has This Animalistic Instinct Of All Dictators: He Smells Weakness. To Quote Winston Churchill's Definition Of Appeasement: "an Appeaser Is One Who Feeds A Crocodile, Hoping It Will Eat Him Last."

We Have To Stop The Propaganda, The Shameful Propaganda Used By Kremlin To Rehabilitate These Old Types.

More And More People In My Country Recognise The Dangers Of Having Their Governors Appointed By Putin And Having No Influence In Parliament Because Parliament Today Is Also Following Instructions From Kremlin And No Longer Represents Its People.

Following Instructions

The Most Hopeful Approach To Peace In Ukraine Is The Minsk Agreement, Which Includes Moscow.

Results Show That Just One Year Of Chess Tuition Will Improve A Student's Learning Abilities, Concentration, Application, Sense Of Logic, Self-discipline, Respect, Behavior And The Ability To Take Responsibility For His/her Own Actions.

Nervous Energy Is The Ammunition We Take Into Any Mental Battle. If You Don't Have Enough Of It, Your Concentration Will Fade. If You Have A Surplus, The Results Will Explode.

Tactics Involve Calculations That Can Tax The Human Brain, But When You Boil Them Down, They Are Actually The Simplest Part Of Chess And Are Almost Trivial Compared To Strategy.

We Don't Have A Choice. A United Democratic Eurasian Continent Welded Together By Common Economic Interests Is Our Only Hope And Contribution To Stability In The World. If We Fail, I Fear That Russia In Its Present Form Is In For The Most Serious Of Upheavals - The Outcome Of Which Is Extremely Unpredictable.

I Like To Say That The Attacker Always Has The Advantage.

There Is A Good Chance Donald Trump Won't Survive Four Years. Conflict Of Interest Is The Biggest Danger For Trump. He Is Destroying One Of The Pillars Of The Free World. He Is Seeking To Eliminate The Very Concept Of Conflict Of Interest. A Lot Of Things In America Were Built On A Code Of Honour. I Am Confident The Damage Done By Ruling Through Family And Friends Will Be Made Impossible By Future Regulation.

Family And Friends

I Feel That My Chess Strengths Are Still Here, .. I Believe I Can Still Improve.

Dictators Are Not Strategists In The Way I Normally Use That Term. All The Dictator Cares About Is Survival. That Means Constantly Worrying About The Tactical Response, "what Do I Do Today, Tonight, Tomorrow Morning, To Stay Alive?" Vladimir Putin Doesn't Care What Happens A Year Or Five Years From Now. He Just Cares About Staying In The Game. That Is All He Needs To Survive.

Next To The Intellectual Stimulation Of Chess, The Educational Value Is Of Great Importance. Chess Teaches Logic, Imagination, Self-discipline, And Determination.

At The End Of The Day, It's All About Money.

The End Of The Day

Our Skin, Our Borders, All Seem Petty Compared To Alien Races And The Scale Of Galaxies. Nobody In The Star Wars Universe Cares About White Or Black Humans, It Seems, And What Meaning Could Physical Appearance Possibly Have When There Are Sentient Beings That Look Like Lobsters Or Like Jabba The Hutt? Unfortunately, In The Real World, Such Hopeful Sentiments Are Regularly Refuted By Our Stubborn Insistence On Always Finding Someone To Discriminate Against.

If You Don't Take Risks, You Don't Drink Champagne.

Losing Can Persuade You To Change What Doesn't Need To Be Changed, And Winning Can Convince You Everything Is Fine Even If You Are On The Brink Of Disaster.

Boris Nemtsov And I Began To Argue After Putin's Return To The Presidency In 2012. In My Opinion, There Was No Longer A Realistic Chance To Achieve Regime Change Through Peaceful Political Means, Or Real Elections. Boris, On The Other Hand, Never Lost This Hope. He Felt That My Assessment Was Premature And Said: "you Have To Live A Long Time To See Changes In Russia." He Was Deprived Of That Opportunity.

There Are Exceptions Of Course, Like For Instance The Baltic States, Which Are Members Of The European Union, Together With Ukraine And Moldova, As Well. In Those Countries, The Governments Have Been Reformed As A Result Of Elections.

Recognise That The Free World Is At War With Putin, And America Is The Leader Of The Free World And Should Build The Coalition Against Him. It Is Similar To What Harry Truman Did In The Forties. They Have To Oppose The Threat That Comes From Putin And Other Dictators.

I Would Like To Travel To My Country Again, To A Country Without A Dictatorship, To A Post-putin Russia.

If Critics And Competitors Can't Match Your Results, They Will Often Denigrate The Way You Achieve Them. Fast, Intuitive Types Are Called Lazy. Dedicated Burners Of The Midnight Oil Are Called Obsessed. And While It's Obviously Not A Bad Idea To Hear And Consider The Opinions Of Others, You Should Be Suspicious When These Criticisms Emerge Right On The Heels Of Success.

My Opponent Is Short And The Match Will Be Short.

With Each Success The Ability To Change Is Reduced. My Longtime Friend And Coach Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, Aptly Compared It To Being Dipped In Bronze. Each Victory Added Another Coat.

If You're Already In A Fight, You Want The First Blow To Be The Last And You Had Better Be The One To Throw It.

People's Minds Are Polluted By These Dark Pictures Of The Future From Hollywood: "the Terminator," The Skynet, "the Matrix." It's World Where There's No Room For Humans, Or They Have To Fight Against The Machines. I Think It's Just A Way, Way, Way, Way In The Future. Is It Going To Happen? I Don't Know. For Me, These Debates Are Not Similar, But They Resemble Debates About How The Sun Will Turn Into A Supernova In 4 To 5 Billion Years. Frankly, I Don't Care.

At A Certain Point, The Atmosphere In The West Could Change. But I Don't See Determined Political Will [for That] At The Moment.

It's Not Enough To Be Talented. It's Not Enough To Work Hard And To Study Late Into The Night. You Must Also Become Intimately Aware Of The Methods You Use To Reach Your Decisions.

For Young Players, Their Minds Are Not Overloaded. I Am 54 With Four Kids And I Do Many Other Things. Even If I Stopped Everything Else, Spent Months Working Just On Chess, For A Long Match Against Most Of The Top Players, A Classical Match, Six Hours, Say, I Don't Stand A Chance. I Have A Better Chance In Shorter Matches. Rapid Is 25 Minutes, Or Blitz Events Where You Have Five Minutes To Make A Move, Or Bullet Games, Where It Is One Minute. For Blitz, Five-minutes Chess, I Would Be Top Ten, Top Five. But Longer Games, No Chance.

Do As Little As Necessary To Appear To Be Doing Something Without Actually Committing To A Cause Or Course Of Action.

I Don't Make Any Secret Of The Fact That I'm Closer To The Republicans Than To The Democrats. But Even Under A President Hillary Clinton, Us Foreign Policy Toward Moscow Would Probably Be More Critical And Confrontational. I Hope It Isn't Too Late For That.

I Believe More Than Ever, Machines Will Put New Challenges, And That Means We'll Have To Be More Creative And More Human, Because That's The Way To Make The Difference.

We Are Living In A New Ice Age, And We Need To Apply The Recipes Of The Cold War To The Kremlin. That Means Isolation Instead Of Offers Of Negotiation. And Ukraine Should Have Been Supplied With Weapons Long Ago.

I Started Playing Chess When I Was Five Years Old. I Learned The Moves From My Mother, Then Worked With My Father - And Later Trainers. My Style Became Very Technical. I Sacrificed A Lot Of Things. I Was Always Hunting For The King, For The Mate. I'd Forget About My Other Pieces.

Ironically, The Main Task Of Chess Software Companies Today Is To Find Ways To Make The Program Weaker, Not Stronger, And To Provide Enough Options That Any User Can Pick From Different Levels And The Machine Will Try To Make Enough Mistakes To Give Him A Chance.

I See My Own Style As Being A Symbiosis Of The Styles Of Alekhine, Tal And Fischer.

A Very Strong Player Can Manage And Can Just Know How To Manage A Thousand Positions. I Get It; It's A Very Arbitrary Number. So Then You Have The World Champion Who Could Do More. But, Again, Any Increase In Numbers Creates, Sort Of, A New Level Of Playing. And Then You Go To The Very Top, And The Difference Is So Minimal, But It Does Exist. So Even A Few Players Who Never Became World Champion, Like Vassily Ivanchuk, For Instance, I Think They Belong To The Same Category.

In An Age When Schools Are Facing Significant Budgetary Restraints, There Is A Greater Need Than Ever To Make Chess Available To As Many Students As Possible. We've Assembled The Very Best In Chess Education To Develop A Complete Chess Curriculum - K Through 12. We've Designed A Program That Encourages Creativity, Instills Self-discipline And Offers Hope And A Feeling Of Accomplishment To Millions Of Children.

I Have Some Security That Could Protect Me Against Provocations But Of Course There Are More Terrible Actions That Could Not Be Stopped By Any Security.

Women, By Their Nature, Are Not Exceptional Chess Players: They Are Not Great Fighters.

When Considering The Islamic World, Turkey Is The Best Example Of A Country Where Democracy Irreversibly Gained A Foothold Despite Religious And Cultural Traditions Still Respected Today. With Some Reservation, This Can Be Said About Pakistan, Too, Where We Can Observe Dynamic Political Processes Going On [and] Governments Change As A Result Of Elections. In My Opinion, It Is Up To The Ruling Elite To Initiate Cardinal Changes.

[vladimir] Putin Wants To Keep [bashar] Assad In Power And Expand His Own Military Base In Syria, Whatever The Cost. I Even Believe He Has An Interest In More And More People Fleeing The Country. The Flow Of Refugees Improves His Negotiating Position Toward The West, Including The German Chancellor.

Young People, Especially Young Men Due To Culture And Perhaps Testosterone, Dream About Changing The World, Making An Impact, Doing Big Things. Now Our Young People Are Told Life Was Better In The Past, That We Should Be Less Ambitious And Hold On To What We Have. The Grand Narratives Of Exploration And Change That Drove The World Forward For A Century Have Been Tamed.

The West Can't Come Up With Anything To Deal With Moscow, Except Appeasement.

Putin Recognized That If He Could Get Enough Money, Everything Would Be Under Control.

I Would Say, You Have A Unique Chance Of Learning More About The Game Of Chess With Your Computer Than Bobby Fischer, Or Even Myself, Could Manage Throughout Our Entire Lives. What Is Very Important Is That You Will Use This Power Productively And You Will Not Be Hijacked By The Computer Screen. Always Keep Your Personality Intact.

Everyone, At Any Age, Has Talents That Aren't Fully Developed-even Those Who Reach The Top Of Their Profession.

It Could Truly Be The Case That Vladimir Putin Has Miscalculated In The Long Term With His Adventure In Syria.

Few Things Are As Psychologically Brutal As Chess.

Even Well-known Historians Like Edward Gibbon Are Talking About How The Soldiers Of The 18th Century Were Not Able To Do The Same Type Of Exercise [like Romans].

Most Likely, The System Of Mutual Relations That Has Evolved In Eastern Europe And Asia Corresponds To Another Level Of Governance.

Learning From Our Mistakes Is Critical For Improving, But Even I Don't Have Patience For Ranking My Regrets. Regret Is A Negative Emotion That Inhibits The Optimism Required To Take On New Challenges. You Risk Living In An Alternative Universe, Where If Only You Had Done This Or That Differently, Things Would Be Better. That's A Poor Substitute For Making Your Actual Life Better, Or Improving The Lives Of Others. Regret Briefly, Analyze And Understand, And Then Move On, Improving The Only Life You Have.

It Was Not About Losing My Mental Power; It's About Not Feeling Good About My Contribution To The Game.

The Handover Of Power To [dmitry] Medvedev Was Rather Painless, Everybody Thought That The Waves Would Calm Automatically. By Now, It's Quite Clear That [vladimir] Putin Doesn't Want To Relinquish The Levers Of Power.

A Master Looks At Every Move He Would Like To Make, Especially The Impossible Ones

The Biggest Problem I See Among People Who Want To Excel In Chess – And In Business And In Life In General – Is Not Trusting Their Instincts Enough.

You Can't Overestimate The Importance Of Psychology In Chess, And As Much As Some Players Try To Downplay It, I Believe That Winning Requires A Constant And Strong Psychology Not Just At The Board But In Every Aspect Of Your Life.

It Is Rather Difficult To Envisage A Scenario That Could Change The Domestic Situation In The Countries Of The South Caucasus Without Solving The Problems Constantly Hindering Normal Cooperation In The Region.

Putin Is Like Al Capone.

I Can't Think Of A Scenario Under Which [vladimir Putin] Would Gradually Resign From Power. For Him And Those Around Him, Power Became A Source Of Unlimited Enrichment. A Loss Of Power Would Be Tantamount To An Annihilation Of The Economic Success That Has Been Achieved So Far.

A Machine Helps Us To Annihilate Our Weaknesses. We Don't Have A Steady Hand. We Can Lose All Vigilance. We Can Be Distracted By Something That Is Not That Relevant. But We Have Intuition. We Can Feel Certain Things. And With A Machine You Can Check Whether It's Right Or Wrong. That's Why By Bringing The Two Together, You Create A Very, Very Powerful Combination.

We Think About Time As Something Not To Waste, Not As Something To Invest.

A Game Of Chess Holds Many Secrets. Fortunately! That Is Why We Cannot Clearly State Whether Chess Is Science, Art, Or A Sport.

You Know, If I'm In A Bad Mood, I Always Look At The Chessboard, Just To Find Something That Can Cheer Me Up.

The Only Successor To President Putin Is President Putin Himself And We Could Of Course Dream About President Putin Stepping Down Voluntarily And Picking Out Successor Which Would Be Probably As Bad As Him.

Capablanca Possessed An Amazing Ability To Quickly See Into A Position And Intuitively Grasp Its Main Features. His Style, One Of The Purest, Most Crystal-clear In The Entire History Of Chess, Astonishes One With His Logic.

I Tried To Come Up With A Definition Of This New Paradigm In Six Articles Entitled "russia After Putin." I Would Consider Russia's Integration Into Europe The Most Important Element Of This Strategy.

When Your House Is On Fire, You Cant Be Bothered With The Neighbors. Or, As We Say In Chess, If Your King Is Under Attack You Don't Worry About Losing A Pawn On The Queen's Side

It's Interesting That The Greatest Minds Of Computer Science, The Founding Fathers, Like Alan Turing And Claude Shannon And Norbert Wiener, They All Looked At Chess As The Ultimate Test. So They Thought, "oh, If A Machine Can Play Chess, And Beat Strong Players, Set Aside A World Champion, That Would Be The Sign Of A Dawn Of The Ai Era." With All Due Respect, They Were Wrong.

I Wouldn't Overestimate The Importance Of My Popularity In The Country And Abroad But At The End Of The Day It's Not As Important Because I Believe That My Presence Here Could Make Some Difference And It Could Encourage People.

I Wouldn't Place Much Stock In Numbers. I Don't Believe That They Reflect Putin's True Popularity. Just Think About How The Pollsters Proceed. They Call People And They Ask Them Questions On The Street. In Today's Russia, It Takes A Lot Of Courage To Tell A Stranger Something Critical About The Head Of The Kremlin. And Yet More Than 20 Percent Do So Nonetheless.

At Any Time The Atmosphere In The West Could Change, For Which Determined Political Will I Do Not See At The Moment Is A Necessary Prerequisite. From The Sidelines, It Seems That He's Caught Up In His Own Exorbitant Ambitions.

Everyone Is Concerned About His Niche, His Name, And Wants To Adapt The Concept To So-called National Characteristics. But At The End Of The Day, It's All The Same.

The End Of The Day

Nowadays Games Immediately Appear On The Internet And Thus The Life Of Novelties Is Measured In Hours. Modern Professionals Do Not Have The Right To Be Forgetful - It Is 'life Threatening'.

[vladimir] Putin Intended To Provide For A Broad Safety Corridor [for The Olympic Games]. That's Why Abkhazia Was A More Important And Desired Goal Of Russian Aggression Against Georgia Than South Ossetia, Which Merely Served As A Pretext. Concerns Mainly Centered On The Crimea.

One Of My Optimistic Prophecies Is Based On The Assumption That Machines Could Have The Best Algorithms In The Universe, But It Will Never Have Purpose. And The Problem For Us To Explain Purpose To A Machine Is Because We Don't Know What Our Purpose Is. We Have The Purpose, But We Still ... When We Look At This Global Picture, A Universal Picture, To Understand What Is Our Purpose Being Here On This Planet? We Don't Know.

A Brilliant Strategy Is, Certainly, A Matter Of Intelligence, But Intelligence Without Audaciousness Is Not Enough.

Without A Goal [maneuvering Is] Aimless. You Might Be A Master Tactician, But You'll Have No Sense Of Strategy.

I Have No Idea How Long Putin Will Last. The Good News Is, Putin Doesn't Know Either. It Will Be Sudden And It Won't Be Peaceful. He Has Burned His Bridges.

Furthermore, The Situation In The North Caucasus Is Rather Unstable. Mutual Relations And The Cooperation Between [vladimir] Putin And [ramzan] Kadyrov, The High Price That Has Been Paid To Buy The Loyalty Of The Local Elite Through An Enormous Tribute Of Multibillion[-ruble] Investments, All This Cannot Be An Arrangement For Good.

All Experiments That Are Related To The Games When You Have Humans Versus Machines In The Games - Whether It's Chess Or "go" Or Any Other Game - Machines Will Prevail Not Because They Can Solve The Game. Chess Is Mathematically Unsolvable. But At The End Of The Day, The Machine Doesn't Have To Solve The Game. The Machine Has To Win The Game. And To Win The Game, It Just Has To Make Fewer Mistakes Than Humans. Which Is Not That Difficult Since Humans Are Humans And Vulnerable, And We Don't Have The Same Steady Hand As The Computer.

I Don't Have Enough Information, And Enough Courage, To Come Up With A Definite Version Of Events. And I Think It Is Too Dangerous For Me To Do So.

By The Time A Player Becomes A Grandmaster, Almost All Of His Training Time Is Dedicated To Work On This First Phase. The Opening Is The Only Phase That Holds Out The Potential For True Creativity And Doing Something Entirely New.

The Legend Of The Best Player Of Chess Has Been Destroyed.

Moscow Is Simply Unwilling To Recognize The Right Of Self-determination Of Nations.

The Technical Phase Can Be Boring Because There Is Little Opportunity For Creavivity, For Art. Boredom Leads To Complacency And Mistakes.

The Public Must Come To See That Chess Is A Violent Sport. Chess Is Mental Torture.

Chess Is Not Dominoes

Question The Status Quo At All Times, Especially When Things Are Going Well.

I Would Not Draw Definitive Conclusions From That. If We Look At South And North Korea, It Is Pretty Hard To Believe That We're Dealing With The Same People. Half Of The People Are Forced To Live In A Concentration Camp; The Other Have Created One Of The Most Dynamic Economies In The World.

Values-oriented Foreign Policy Of The Free World Would Be Much Better, Supported By The Self-awareness Of Being On The Right Side Of History.

In The Event That We Don't Want To Lose The Far East And Siberia, We Need A United Europe.

Karabakh Conflict Has A Strong Influence On The Political Climate Both In Azerbaijan And Armenia. It Is Obvious, Too, That The Azerbaijani Leadership Can Capitalize Indefinitely On This Topic To Underpin Its Legitimacy Even In A Situation In Which Democratic Institutions Are Virtually Eliminated.

[vladimir] Putin Is More Of A Poker Player. In Poker, Unlike Chess, You Can Effectively Compensate For A Very Weak Hand By Bluffing. There Are Fixed Rules In Chess, And No One Knows How The Game Will End. Things Are Currently The Other Way Around In Putin's Realm. But It Won't Stay That Way Forever.

It Is Better To Have A Bad Plan Than No Plan.

Dictatorships Sometimes Fall Unexpectedly And Quickly. And [vladimir] Putin Knows That For Him, The Loss Of Power Doesn't Mean A Comfortable Retirement, But Something Completely Different.

Chess Helps You To Concentrate, Improve Your Logic. It Teaches You To Play By The Rules And Take Responsibility For Your Actions, How To Problem Solve In An Uncertain Environment.

I Dropped The King's Indian In 1997 After One Too Many Bad Experiences Against Kramnik.

Bad Experiences

Vladimir Putin Is The Wealthiest Man On The Planet, For Sure. But This Is Different To The Wealth Of A Bill Gates Or A Warren Buffett, A Carlos Slim Or A Sergey Brin. They Stay Wealthy Whether It Is Barack Obama Or Donald Trump In Power. Putin's Wealth Depends On Him Staying In Power. It Is All About Controlling The Budget, The Hard Currency Reserves And Keeping Under His Thumb The Oligarchs Who Cannot Move Their Money Without His Permission. It Is Something Close To A Trillion Dollars That He Can Control And Move.

We Shouldn't Forget That In The Case Of Georgia, A Problem Was Done Away With That Bothered [vladimir] Putin Personally - That Is, The Security During The Winter Olympics In Sochi In 2014. Security Not In The Sense Of A Guaranteed Absence Of A Terror Attack, But In Pursuing The Aim Of Moving Hot Spots Of Possible Conflict Farther From The Site Of The Olympic Games, Which Are To Be Held A Stone's Throw From Abkhazia - That Is, In De Jure Georgia.

One Does Not Succeed By Sticking To Convention. When Your Opponent Can Easily Anticipate Every Move You Make, Your Strategy Deteriorates And Becomes Commoditized.

Throughout My Chess Career I Sought Out New Challenges, Looking For Things No One Had Done Before.

For Me, Chess Is A Language, And If It's Not My Native Tongue, It Is One I Learned Via The Immersion Method At A Young Age.

Russia Is A Mafia State Today, And Putin Is Its Top Godfather.

Russia's Inclination Toward Authoritarianism Undoubtedly Strengthened The Leaders In Azerbaijan, Armenia, And Kazakhstan, As They Are Afraid Of Normal Democratic Procedures.

You Cannot Say, 'go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good Move!' People Want Some Emotion. Chess Is An Art And Not A Spectator Sport.

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