Hi there.
In this introduction lecture, I want to talk about Aron Nimzowitsch.
He wasn't a world chess champion, but he was one of the strongest in the world at the time in his era.
And not just a great positional player with very innovative novel ideas.
It was also a positional thought leader, and a lot of his teachings were in the classic book, My System.
And there are many important sayings which, well, at least are thought provoking.
Yes.
So in the introduction to the modern edition of my system indicates that's one of the most important
things about Nimzowitsch.
He provides stimulation for thinking about positional concepts.
He might not always be correct well, in all cases, but he provides the vocabulary for us to discuss
positional play and put labels to things which previously didn't have such emphatic labels.
Now, his quotations include, for example, do not always be thinking of attack.
Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.
For me, this echoes the art of war principle.
Put yourself beyond the feet before going onto the attack.
If you're safeguarding your position or strengthening or slightly improving it, you are putting yourself
beyond the feet.
Before going on to the attack, for example, you might remove a tactical liability, you might improve
a certain piece so it's more active and maybe that would be critical to try and defend your king if
you went onto the attack prematurely.
Maybe you are subject to a strong counter-attack.
And because of one issue or another, you can't actually defend the counterattack.
So the principle of putting yourself beyond the feet before going on to the attack is critical, in
my view.
He also says the main operation.
The main objective of any operation in an open file is the eventual occupation of the seven or eight
franc.
And that is that echoes for me employability, that we should be in general aware that pieces might
look good, but what happens later?
Do they actually get juicy targets?
So we need to see quite critically what leads to what in positional play.
So quite often we'll see many examples in this course where, you know, rooks later come to the seventh
rank like in this game, it might come to the seventh Frank later and there's a lot of juicy targets.
And even if that doesn't immediately mate or win material, it could actually tie down the opponents
having so many targets and some of them are pinned to the king, etc..
So yeah, this idea of managing the rooks effectively, having some vision for the effectiveness of
the Rooks is important in chess.
They are, you know, in the opening, they come to the center quite often as a prelude, hopefully
later to find great destinations across the ranks.
Okay, so Nimzowitsch also talked about strategically important points should be overprotected.
Now, some very strong players think, well, he's just talking about centralization.
Pieces that are in contact with central points is centralized.
That's true.
But also, I personally believe from a lot of nimzowitsch over protection examples.
He's also talking about being able to attack again with freedom, more freedom because you've overprotected
the central point.
You can switch through an attack without counterplay.
So in another respect, you could say that's a strengthening of position prior to either attacking or
or tactical activities.
So over protection is a very interesting idea which we find in INS, which is my system.
He also talks at length about blockading and he had sayings like first restrain next blockade, lastly
destroying.
But in Nimzowitsch games himself, if you investigate nimzowitsch games, quite a lot of them he is
restraining or preventing operations of say, the queenside before going on to attack onto a sac on
the other side of the board.
It's not necessarily about blockading double pawns with a view of winning them.
He might just use that blockade to make sure the opponent's counterplay is prevented before going onto
the attack against the king.
So in my view, yeah, restrain the blockade is great to improve the position to make sure the opponent
hasn't got too many dangerous options.
That's part of improving the position to kind of make sure the sting is taken out of the opponent's
possession.
Whether you destroy pass pawns or just use that to sort of prelude and attack is again linking to strengthening
the position before going onto the attack, putting yourself beyond the fight on the queenside.
It could be with a restraint on blockade of double pawns before going on to the attack on the kingside.
So again, it could be related to that as well.
A very interesting saying.
The Fritz I would say is often stronger than the execution.
Sometimes.
Clearly the threat should be done immediately if it's decisive.
So many players have been confused with the quotation.
The threat is stronger than the execution, but perhaps nimzowitsch actually meant the threat is often
stronger than the execution.
And sometimes if we have a pin, for example, sometimes we can celebrate that pin instead of winning
material immediately, we can actually end up winning more material as an example.
Or the opponent might be consumed with a lot of calculations to continually see about the threat, and
that might wear them down both psychologically and on the clock.
So in practice, this is often a practical, psychological thing and use of resources.
The threat is often, in practice, stronger than the immediate execution.
If we're talking about immediately winning material, maybe that material could be won later with delayed
gratification under better conditions.
For example, material could be one of the better conditions, but just the strain of the opponent having
to continually calculate.
And that is a hat of Magnus Carlsen.
When there was this lecture I remember at Gibraltar, someone a grandmaster, was going on about Magnus
Carlsen in different hats.
And one of them is this kind of keeping the tension hat.
So that's kind of equivalent when we keep the tension instead of being concrete in our executions,
it makes it harder for the opponent.
They have to keep looking and looking and looking.
We haven't put them out of their misery.
It's like a drama on TV.
The drama is put in suspense like Alfred Alfred Hitchcock stories with suspense.
You have to keep going on to the end of the film or the drama or to the next episode.
So keeping the drama going rather than clarifying it is often stronger than the execution.
But in a clear case where winning material is is absolutely winning, then there's less scope for that.
And also on the other side of it, if the opponent seems to be threatening something, what if the execution
isn't that great?
Anyway, we've got to look at is it really that great?
What they want to try and do is just winning material, but then they damage their position.
So there's that aspect as well.
Be cynical about the actual executions.
They might just win a battle, not the whole war.
And actually we're going to see that soon.
In this example game that I'm going to show you.
Another interesting thing.
The passport is a criminal who should be kept under lock and key mode.
Measures like police surveillance are not sufficient.
For me.
This echoes levels of prevention and blockades.
When you blockade a pawn, you're physically limiting it from moving.
You could say these pawns are locked together.
They're physically stopping, moving, mutually blockading each other.
But a night blockade in front of.
It's the ultimate form of restraints.
It's no chances given, really.
Maybe under certain conditions, a an opponent's pawn might be able to advance and give dynamic compensation.
It might sacrifice itself to open up a bishop or something.
So when we blockade, we're firmly kind of restraining.
And the same with a passport if we're blockading a passport.
So the same applies to parts of our opponents pawn structure in general, in my view that we can think
of levels of prevention, but blockade is like the highest level you can get in chance where you legally
prevent.
It's not a legal move, it's a move certain pawns which might might have helped open up the opponent's
pieces.
So yes, levels of prevention blockade being the top level.
Prevention is a huge thing to maintain control of a position.
So the example game I'd like to show you is a fragment.
We analyze this game in detail in the course, but let's take this exciting position.
It looks as though with White's last move that.
They've supported the idea of playing E4 by pinning the pawn, and that would hit the knights.
So there's them who want to move the knight back.
So here we have to ask, is the execution really that bad?
Actually, we have to be cynical about the execution of the threat.
And actually, guess what?
Nimzowitsch plays here for 100 points.
So are we worried about this this night with E4?
Is that actually a threat we need to be worried about?
So Nimzowitsch.
Has this notion about Rucks being aggressive if they reach the seven for eight Franks as well.
So remember that notion as well.
And you might come up with Bishop RD six, so just permit the execution of the France So E four and
it looks as though hold on.
You know, we don't want to create dark square weaknesses on the dark squares.
We don't want to move the night back because it could run into e five.
But guess what?
Nimzowitsch is move is here, which is really fascinating.
He actually goes for a rook on the seventh.
He sacrifices the knight.
So a sense of -- is blunting the G two bishop anyway and the knights taken.
But now another pawn, two pawns for a knight.
But it's an absolutely fascinating, fascinating position to try and evaluate.
Black's actually doing really well here because also there are some bad pieces which really, like B
one, can't really improve that easily where it's already in a binds and once win of material is actually
made things worse.
So Queen G five was played Rook 8f8 reinforces authority on the f fo White really can't challenge this
F format easily.
We see King H one and now rook 8f5 The Queen goes to e three and now Bishop RD three really tying white
up vividly.
And there's also an idea here now because the Queen has been stopped from going to be free, there's
an idea of rookie to winning the queen.
We have rook see one just addressing this idea of winning the queen.
And now this move which just marks how it hasn't got any player at all age six.
And actually here just to move 25 off to age six by black white resigns.
Believe it or not, if Bishop F won, then, you know, we just take that.
That's out of the question.
If g for we play rook five to F three.
And what is white doing here?
The H six move is taken out.
Queen G five so this but even.
But also the thing is here, there's a real case to chat, mate.
If h for then this move and this is still very strong for just winning the Queen instead of checkmate,
we're just winning the Queen in that scenario.
If a free we can maintain the bind with a fine making sure this knight hasn't got any opportunity.
Eight six, eight x say be free.
We can just play queen of seven.
So why?
It's in a major zugzwang even more now technically.
And if G four we're just going to play this move and again we're trapping the queen or mating, we're
going to win the queen or mating and rook C one.
Then that's the weakness of the last move.
We're going to tap into e two and win the Queen.
So what a binds.
What an amazing game.
It was actually nicknamed the immortal Zugzwang game.
So it actually links to some of the movie chess quotations.
This is why I felt this was an interesting example to use, because it is basically talking about the
threats and executions on the execution is actually that effective.
We've got to be cynical about the threats and we've got to be cynical about the execution.
We've got to be optimistic with our rooks trying to reach the seven for eight francs when they have
juicy targets, whether they're winning those targets or pinning them down or chat mating, that's the
Rooks.
Ambition is often the ranks.
The falls are just a prelude to the rank pressure.
This idea first restrained blockade destroying.
Well, you know, White was restrained in the widest sense prevented from doing anything.
If you can keep doing that until the opponent has no useful moves, then that's an amazing thing to
witness on the chessboard.
And there's a whole beauty of positional chess, you know, just encapsulated in this game.
Example.
No wonder it's in so many game collections at sites like chess games.
Com So this is one of my favorite vivid nimzowitsch positional games.
White completely positionally destroyed.
So we're going to see a lot of nimzowitsch game examples.
I hope you're inspired to be looking forward to Nimzowitsch as well as a really important figure in
positional chess because he created a lot of interesting terminology and methods.
So whilst Steinitz and Lasker together led the foundation for the modern game and modern positional
play, Nimzowitsch found very useful exceptions and refined ideas and made things clearer for the positional
player to follow.
And it seems that Petrosian was a big fan of Nimzowitsch as well as Capablanca, and so was Anatoly
Karpov, a big fan of Capablanca as well as Petrosian.
So yeah, Nimzowitsch is a Rhodes influence for positional chess and if you check out my system is also
admiring players like Rubinstein, Steinitz, Lasker.
You know, he respects the world champions and use those players as examples as well as we showed in
this course.
So Steinitz and Alaska, don't forget them.
They set out the very foundations of the modern game and modern positional chess.
So but Nimzowitsch was one of the leading hyper modernists.
So the hyper modernist, you know, they found these useful exceptions to extend and clarify theory.
So he clarified positional ideas greatly with his writings.
So I hope you enjoy this little introduction to Nimzowitsch and are motivated a little bit more with
conviction as we go over nimzowitsch examples in the course.
Okay, very much.