The phrase “it’s better to be lucky than good” must be one of the most ridiculous homilies ever uttered. In nearly any competitive endeavor, you have to be damned good before luck can be of any use to you at all.

Thanks to the Polgars the adjective ‘men’s’ before events and the ‘affirmative action’ women’s titles such as Woman Grandmaster have become anachronisms.

The West can’t come up with anything to deal with Moscow, except appeasement.

By strictly observing Botvinnik’s rule regarding the thorough analysis of one’s own games, with the years I have come to realize that this provides the foundation for the continuous development of chess mastery.

The machines have finally come for the white collared, the college graduates, the decision makers. And it’s about time. J.

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.

It’s true that in chess as in politics, fund-raising and glad-handing matter.

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.

History does not end; it runs in cycles. The failure to defend Ukraine today is the failure of the Allies to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938. The world must act now so that Poland in 2015 will not be called on to play the role of Poland in 1939.

Enormous self-belief, intuition, the ability to take a risk at a critical moment and go in for a very dangerous play with counter-chances for the opponent – it is precisely these qualities that distinguish great players.