The Art of being Wrong

• The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession.

  -Botvinnik said about a young 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov

• Don't worry, kids. You'll find work. After all, my machine will need strong chess player-programmers. You will be the first.

  -Botvinnik said to Karpov and other chess students, c.1963, regarding his computer chess program which he claimed would eventually defeat the World Champion.

• Bad Advice

  Steinitz used to play all-comers at Simpson's coffee- house in the Strand for half a sovereign a game. (Now an old- English style of restaurant noted for its roast beef, Simpson's still has on display the board and pieces used by such legendary players as Staunton, Zukertort, Blackburne, Tarrasch and of course Morphy himself. The board is a big one, 60cm square.) One of Steinitz's regular customers was a woodpusher who lost game after game, week after week. As chess writer Irving Chernev tells the story, a friend advised Steinitz to let him win just one game, so as to avoid killing the golden goose. Steinitz took the advice, played as badly as he could, left his queen en prise, and when his opponent finally saw it, resigned. He began setting up the pieces for a new game but the jubilant victor ran out of the cafe shouting the amazing news that at long last he had defeated the World Champion, and never played him again.

Source:
Article 48586 of rec.games.chess by nicolo@na47sun26.cern.ch (Nicolo de Groot) ,May 1995
'Total Chess' by David Spanier