Tartakowerisms

Savielly Tartakower

Tartakowerisms are pointed and ironic sayings with which the Polish-French chess master Savielly (Xavier) Tartakower (1887–1956) his free, i. H. games played outside of a competition and his published game comments. Many of them have become “winged words” among chess players .

A small selection:

• "The threat is stronger than the execution."
• “The tactician needs to know what to do when there is something to be done; the strategist has to know what to do when there is nothing to do. "
• "It is always cheaper to sacrifice your opponent's stones ."
• "The Isolani darkens the mood on the chessboard."
• "The mistakes are all there, they just have to be made."
• "The tragedy of mistakes is the tragedy of passions."
• "A whole batch can be tailored to a specific error."
• "The game of chess is usually a tale of a thousand and one mistakes."
• "The penultimate mistake always wins."
• "In chess you only learn through mistakes."
• "The existence of the game of chess is justified solely by the existence of mistakes."
• "Mistakes can and should only be made by strong players."
• "There is only one mistake in chess - overestimating the opponent."

Aleksei Suetin incorporated some of the Tartakowerisms, some of which have a serious psychological background and humorously, into his chess book Typische Fehler (Sportverlag, Berlin 1980).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexei Suetin : Typical mistakes , 1980, Sportverlag Berlin