THE BRiGHT SIDE OF CHESS
Mason had the unique quality Of competently simmering
through six aching hours, and scintillating in the seventh.
Others resembled him, but forgot to scintillate.
My theory Of a key-mote tcOS always to make it just the re-
terse of what a player in 999 cases out of 1000 u.'ould look
Never miss a check—it might be mate!
In a gambit you gice up a Pawn for the sake Of getting a
lost game.
Skittles are the social glasses Of chess—indulged in too freely
they lead to inebriation, and weaken the consistent effort
necessary to build up a strong game.
The Pawns are the soul of the game,
Don't make a strong mote too s•00rd
Chess books should he used use glosses—to assist the
sight; although some players make use Of them as if they
thought they conferred sight.
A recorded game of chess is a story in symbols, relating in
cipher the struggle of two intellects; a story with a real plot,
EPIGRAMS
i 13
beginning, a middles and an end, in which the harmonies
of time and place are scrupulously obserced; the fickleness
of fortune is illustrated; the smiles Of the prosperous, the
struggles Oi adversity, the change that comes otter the two;
the plans suggested by one, spoiled by the tactics of the
other—the lures, the wiles, the fierce onset, the final Üictory.
An houÖs history of two minds is well told in a game of
chess.
There have been times iii my life when I came very near
thinking that I could not lose even a single game. Then
would be beaten, and the lost game would bring me back
from dreamland to earth. Nothing ig so healthy as a thrash-
ing at the proper time, and from few won games hace I
learned as much as hate from most Of my eats.
CAPABLANCA
When Paulsen took an hour for his mote, and then pushed
his King one square, a Spectator obserced, "It seems such
long time for such a little mote."
I haue been playing chess for ocer fifty years. I started when
I teas ten years old, cmd I am still going strong. In all that
time I don't beliec.e a dog has gone by that I have not played
at least one game of chess—and I still enioy it as much as
ever.
In annotating a game between Naidorf and Stahlberg, Fine
remarks wittily, "Naidorf hesitates two motws•, and before
he can think of the Swedish word for check, Black's threats
hate become Oterwhelming. "
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