The famous chess champion Richard Reti was often asked how many moves he typically calculated in advance when making a combination. "They are always astonished," Reti once recalled, "when I reply, quite truthfully, 'as a rule not a single one'!"
[Jose Raoul Capablanca was once asked the same question, and replied: "One move -- the best one." (The game, of course, is all about studying and recognizing positional patterns.)]
[In 1924, Reti set a World Blindfold Exhibition record in South America, playing 29 games -- and winning (20) or drawing (7) all but two! "Perhaps his strength did not reside so much in the discovery of a new move or of a tactical finesse hitherto unknown as in a new strategy," Rudolf Spielmann wrote in Reti's obituary in 1929. "Very frequently and only after a few moves, I would find myself settling down against him with a lost position without knowing exactly how it could possibly have happened."]
Sources
Exeter Chess Club
