Frases de Gari Kaspárov

página 2

“Ahora sabía que había entrado al país malvado, pero no conocía las reglas de combate.”

“No me gusta el juego de Tal, porque Botvínnik considera que no se puede ganar jugando como lo hace él, porque el ajedrez tiene sus leyes.”

“Cuando Botvínnik jugó contra Tal, no hubo color en el primer match y eso fue absolutamente normal. Lo anormal fue su posterior derrota.”

“Las piezas blancas y negras parecían representar divisiones maniquíes entre la luz y la oscuridad, el bien y el mal, en el mismo espíritu del hombre.”

“Veo en la lucha ajedrecística un modelo pasmosamente exacto de la vida humana, con su trajín diario, sus crisis y sus incesantes altibajos.”

“En ajedrez mi palabra es cercana a la de Dios.”

“He tenido el mejor profesor particular que hubiera podido desear.”

“Está claro que Artur Yusúpov está peor, pero creo que juega para ganar.”

“Quisiera dejar constancia de mi admiración por Kárpov, que luchó bravamente hasta el final. Yo he sentido su fuerza, moral y psicológicamente hablando.”

“Cuando jugó 45… h5 no podía creer a mis propios ojos.”

“Es una pena utilizar una novedad tan fuerte con un rival tan flojo”

“This is not to say that a dictator or his policies cannot have popular support. The problem is defining what support means after 18 years of a personality cult and 24/7 propaganda that portrays Putin as a demigod protecting Russia from deadly enemies without and within. A year of fake news trolling and half-baked social media memes had half of America and its vaunted media running in circles in 2016. Imagine what it does to a population when that’s all there is, every hour, every day, for nearly two decades.”

“"Socialism with a human face"?… Frankenstein also had a human face.”

“We have to always look ahead enough moves to be well prepared, even for victory!”

“There are an infinite number of ways to lie and only one truth. Propaganda today is not a wall, not a dike holding back information from reaching the people. It is a flood, overwhelming our critical thinking. The concept is not to promote a particular narrative or agenda but to create doubt and to make people believe that the truth is unknowable. There are no Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia didn’t meddle in the U. S. election. The popular Vladimir Putin was reelected on March 18, 2018.”

“Having spent a lifetime analyzing the game of chess and comparing the capacity of computers to the capacity of the human brain, I've often wondered, where does our success come from? The answer is synthesis, the ability to combine creativity and calculation, art and science, into a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind, and are then refined and improved by experience.”

“It’s easy to lose your reputation, it’s easy to lose your friends, to lose their confidence, than to regain it.”

“Great leaders are formed only by taking on great challenges.”

“Putin is willing to poison bodies in the free world, not only minds. Why would he do this? Why would he call attention to his murderous ways now? Well, I’ll turn that around and ask instead, why wouldn’t he? Dictators don’t ask “Why,” they ask “Why not?””

“Each victory pulls the victor down slightly and makes it harder to put in maximum effort to improve further.”

“My nature is that I have to excite myself with a big challenge.”

“The same definition issue arises with the word “election.” In a free society, the day of the vote is the culmination of a long democratic process that depends on equal access to an unfettered media, fair conditions, debates, etc., none of which have existed in Russia for nearly 20 years. Postulating that Putin would win anyway even if the March 18 election were honest is a meaningless exercise. If he and his policies were truly popular, in the real sense of the word, he wouldn’t need to spend so much time and effort dominating the media, eliminating rivals, and rigging elections large and small. Persecuting bloggers and arresting a single protester standing in the town square with an anti-Putin sign does not strike me as the behavior of a ruler who believes in his own popularity.”

“Everyone, at any age, has talents that aren't fully developed-even those who reach the top of their profession.”

“Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature.”

“The implicit, or even explicit, offer made by authoritarians is stability in exchange for liberty. High oil prices allowed Putin to keep this bargain for a while, aided by an international community that lost interest in promoting liberty as soon as the Berlin Wall fell. Putin was welcomed by the G7 as an equal while destroying democracy and civil society at home. Imagine how difficult it was for us in Russia to attack Putin’s regime as undemocratic while he was being embraced by the leaders of the free world. Even Putin’s invasion of neighboring Georgia in August 2008 resulted in no censure or sanction. He was rewarded by Obama and Hillary Clinton’s reset a few months later, confirming to him that a move into Ukraine would also go unchallenged.”

“The leaders of the free world keep lowering their standards and authoritarians keep taking more territory. Eventually people wake up and ask why Putin murders in the UK or hacks in the US. Why wouldn’t he? You didn’t stop him before.”

“For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal. The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play.”

“[C]hess is not a game for dictators for numerous reasons. One, it's transparent. It’s all information hundred percent available so you know exactly what you have, you know exactly what your opponent has. You don’t know what he or she is thinking, but you definitely know what kind of resources your opponent can use to hurt you, to damage your position. Also, chess is very much a strategic game so you have to think long-term. Dictators don’t think long-term. Dictators, especially who are in power for so long as Putin is, they have to work on the survival mode. Because it’s all about today, maybe tomorrow morning. Everything that helps us survive is good. Because the moment the dictator thinks long-term, he’ll definitely miss guys from his own entourage hitting him in his own back. The game that defines dictators much better is poker because it’s about bluffs. It doesn’t matter whether you have a strong hand or weak hand. You can have a weak hand, but if you’re comfortable bluffing, raising stakes, and if you can read your opponent.”

“Somehow people always forget that it's much easier to install a dictator than to remove one.”

“We must decide what we value and decide what is worth fighting for and then–the most important part–we must fight for it.”

“It’s still unfathomable that Russia went from joyously celebrating the end of totalitarianism to electing a KGB lieutenant-colonel in just nine years. Never take your liberty for granted, and be careful whom you vote for because it may be the last election you’ll ever have.”

“I was almost annoyed hearing that Putin plays chess and Obama or other leaders of the free world they play checkers. I thought I had to defend the integrity of my game because chess is not a game for dictators for numerous reasons. One, it’s transparent. It’s all information hundred percent available so you know exactly what you have, you know exactly what your opponent has. You don’t know what he or she is thinking, but you definitely know what kind of resources your opponent can use to hurt you, to damage your position.”

“Let’s move on to the next major lie in my opening statement, the idea of Putin’s popularity in Russia. I could not begin to count the number of times I’ve been forced to address this myth, the persistence of which I again attribute to our lack of language to describe modern dictatorships. Terms like “polls” and “popularity” as applied to politicians in the free world have very different meanings in authoritarian regimes. I’m fond of asking in response to questions about Putin’s “popularity” if a restaurant is popular if it’s the only one in town and every other restaurant was burned to the ground.”

“Putin should simply be called a dictator.”

“In chess, we say that the player with the initiative is obliged to attack, otherwise the initiative will be lost and the counterattack will likely be decisive.”

“Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down.”

“Communism is like an autoimmune disorder; it doesn't do the killing itself, but it weakens the system so much that the victim is left helpless and unable to fight off anything else.”

“When I retired from professional chess in 2005 to join the Russian pro-democracy movement against Putin, I was frequently asked how my chess experience might help me in politics. My answer was that it wouldn’t help much at all, because in chess we had fixed rules and uncertain results, while in Russian politics it was exactly the opposite.”

“For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal.”

“Every country has its own mafia. In Russia, the mafia has its own country.”