Hi there.
In this lecture, we see Aaron Nimzowitsch against Arthur, her Hansson.
This is in 1922.
Their second match.
This is round 1e4 from the switch.
We have the French defense e6d, 4d5, and now E five is played C five.
And instead of trying to maintain the pawn chain, Nimzowitsch plays a novelty move with an idea of
a pawn sacrifice for a kind of positional bind and overprotected.
The central e five points.
So over protection, even when a pawn down can be quite magnificent as we see in this game, we have
the move.
Queen G four.
This is a very, very interesting move.
Of course, computers say, no, this is unsound, but they will know how to deal with it quite early
on.
So we have C takes DD four Knight, our 396 and our Bishop de Fray an already black, goes from being
better here technically to just being equal after five.
This leaves the bind points e five which kind of cramps Black's game.
Better would have been age five and to challenge E five immediately.
Even though it looks ridiculous to allow Bishop G six check, this is a great way for blacks play it
because the king is actually safe in this closed position.
And the important thing is to release this e five bind.
So say White Castles night takes E five, night takes e five check f tanks, Queen takes E, five,
Queen f six Black is getting rid of that E five binds now.
And this position is going to be nice for black blacks establishing central control and is doing fine
here just fine.
Better.
But with f five it goes to equal.
Funnily enough, after Queen G free even engines think this position is equal.
Well, blacks double pawns are not something.
Sometimes they're not acting as a real extra pawn.
That's one thing.
So why is coordinating with that central point?
And it does restrict the opponents position.
We have like g7y councils are now 9g6.
This is only a temporary kind of pressure on e5h6 might be more to the point here.
So after H four Queen C seven Rook e one An energetic measure like G five is needed to try and maintain
equality.
So H takes 96 to try and generate some counterplay here.
This is an extreme way of generating counterplay.
So for example, this position blacks should be able to claim equality.
But with this move, black is sliding down a slippery slope of having no counterplay.
We have H four so Queen C seven rookie one that bind is not going anywhere now.
Bishop D7 and now a friend.
In fact to over protect.
Sometimes you can't add more pressure, but there are clearly two knights which might be dragged away
from e five This one with H five and this one with 4b5.
So it's real over protection.
Example it's a fantastically vivid example.
B b4 we see a6h5 so one's driven away.
So why it's got such a good pressure on E five and our grip.
Bishop D2 and with the king on C eight white can just try and open up the C file at some point.
But first we have A for gaining space and putting Black's pieces more on the back row G five.
Now this is ignored.
White can take on basins but won't play B5 taking on Bison's rook gab5.
This is also going to be good.
You know, this kind of position is going to be very nice for white but.
This looks great from an over protection perspective and not giving the opponent any active pieces that
kind of policy.
So B5 we have F4 and our Queen G4 might be eight.
I now see three just wanting to open the C file to expose the Queen and king here.
So rookie ain't if D tanks C free 910 C free.
We can see how dangerous this C file is.
This position.
Black's going to have to give up a piece.
Things are getting out of hand on the c file, so this is absolutely no good for black.
So rookie ain't C takes the fall.
We have the king scrambling ta da to get to avoid the queen being lost.
But in a way, the queen is lost.
Now, after Roxy won, the Queen is put in a prison.
So a five queen 87.
This is ridiculous.
B six.
You don't usually see this in modern Grandmaster Games.
Very amusing.
Anna Rook on the seventh.
So Rook on the seventh features again in Nimzowitsch game, lots of juicy targets.
So niter 590 C free.
But the overarching theme is the early over protection of E five.
We have Bishop e seven just to show how bad Black's position is.
If 9794 is even possible to try and checkmate the Queen, believe it or not, of the D text Bishop takes
e four We'll be fretting Bishop He's seven kind of chap mating queen.
If Bishop c6 D five opens up things.
And this position, for example, Queen size.
Checkmate.
So we can see how dangerous the king is not safe as well as the queen being in prison.
A dire state of affairs.
If 9065 this position d six this is miserable.
White can just play Bishop St C six here and a 9/10 g five Fretilin 9f7 mating.
And if rookies seven this is just hopeless this position the black king is in huge trouble and we can
soon chat mate like this.
So we're chat mating funny stuff, really funny stuff.
So in fact the knight is left as a target on five.
So a simple tactic now.
Can you see five points?
Yeah.
Nine takes the five.
Just undermining the knight on a five.
We have night takes the fall.
So if E takes, we're simply going to play.
Bishop takes up five.
So 9/10 D four.
But now note takes D four, he takes the five.
If Bishop F eight, then F six is huge for white.
Ouch.
It looks so painful, but this is funny.
The game continuation.
Guess what Nimzowitsch plays here?
So he's an excellent tactician as well and does spot a nice tactic for ten points.
What would you play here?
Yeah.
Queen takes these seven check, and this ends the game after nine, takes the seven or Black resigned.
But if nine takes the seven, 96 is checkmate.
It's the ideas of limitation over protection actually have pervaded my own French defense.
Start opening.
Sometimes I do sacrifice a pawn on D4 to try and protect E5 and sometimes that really works a treat
to try and get a positional binds.
It's like a positional pawn sacrifice in the opening.
Sometimes, you know, you can get this from various variations, but the advance variation where Black
is trying to attack your pawn chain, just having a positional pawn sacrifice like this is a fascinating
thing.
I mean, you could also just play night free to positioning, sacrifice, pawn and try and leverage
the E5 bind.
But ways and methods have been seen by black example games.
For example, some botvinnik games where later where there's an early 697 to g six trying to hit E5,
but Black made real really no attempt to undermine E5.
It was kind of left there as a positional bind.
And this is bad news and these points are just prone to be kicked later to kind of in effect increase
the E5 bind.
So it's a really interesting example of protecting a central square.
You can see that it's a central square, so the pieces are pretty well placed.
You know, if it was as example, say it was a two, he wouldn't really want to protect a two with our
pieces.
You know, if everyone was trying to protect eight, it would be ridiculous.
A nice central square like E5 means the pieces are well coordinated.
And also there's a battle to decentralize, in effect, the opponent's pieces because that's a central
square.
So over protection, increasing our own pressure on the central square, reducing the opponent's pressure
on the central square, it's a battle of, in a way, centralization as well.
And it's worth four pawn.
It starts to be definitely worth a pawn.
And also we have elements of king safety creeping in as well.
But black, you know, devoid of counterplay here in this position.
And Nimzowitsch didn't even give black any any rook play, really.
So yes, wonderful example where black's in such a binds, he must have felt very strange about this
game.
Not being able to do something, anything.
And having his queen on a is is just comical really.
This is just a comical game as well with the queen queen on air.
So yes, a wonderful tactical finish crowning the positional play.
So beautiful example.
That's one of the beauties of the older games.
You get to see bigger mistakes and it's kind of more emphatic and instructive than the modern positional
games between grandmasters.
Often you need a contrast between players.
So in terms of Ich clearly superior to hack Hansen in this game positionally on a different level.
So I hope you enjoyed this and got the basic idea of over protecting a central point.
It provides coordination, centralization and kind of decentralization strategy for the opponent's pieces,
and that can lead to big king safety issues, the concrete fruits to be had from that a great of course,
after if the opponent really has got no counterplay, you can start building up and get a very strong,
successful attack with little resistance.
As in this game, it was just made to look extremely easy.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this as much as me and so much.