Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (October 31 or November 1, 1892 – March 24, 1946) was a Russian-born naturalized French chess grandmaster (officially naturalized in 1927 only three days before the World Champion title), and the fourth World Chess Champion.

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• Chess for me is not a game, but an art. Yes, and I take upon myself all those responsibilities which an art imposes on its adherents.

• Chess first of all teaches you to be objective.

• I study chess eight hours a day, on principle.

• I'm very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his. (on being asked how it was that he picked better moves than his opponents)

• The fact that a player is very short of time is, to my mind, as little to be considered an excuse as, for instance, the statement of the law-breaker that he was drunk at the time he committed the crime.
  • On the Zeitnot problem.

• To win against me, you must beat me three times: in the opening, the middlegame and the endgame.

• With his death, we have lost a very great chess genius whose like we'll never see again.
  • On his great rival José Raúl Capablanca.

About Alexander Alekhine

• It was impossible to win against Capablanca; against Alekhine it was impossible to play.
  • Paul Keres

• Capablanca was the greatest talent, but Alekhine was the greatest in his achievements.
  • Mikhail Botvinnik

• He lived in and for chess like no one before him, nor any since until Fischer.
  • Taylor Kingston

• In playing through an Alekhine game one suddenly meets a move which simply takes one's breath away.
  • Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander

• Alekhine's attacks came suddenly, like destructive thunderstorms that erupted from a clear sky.
  • Garry Kasparov

• I can comprehend Alekhine's combinations well enough; but where he gets his attacking chances from and how he infuses such life into the very opening - that is beyond me.
  • Rudolf Spielmann

• Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card.
  • Max Euwe

• Fortune favors the bold, especially when they are Alekhine.
  • Lodewijk Prins