Tuesday 17 July 2007

Nimzo Indian strategic dream

Apologies that there have been no posts for a couple of days. I ended up in hospital on Sunday, but a raging temperature, two saline drips, and some awful headaches later, I'm finally starting to recover (I hope!).

Two weeks ago, I showed you one of my best games, where Black ventured an unusual move order in the Nimzo Indian to try and establish a strong knight on c4, but the idea was torn apart by immediate energetic play from White.

The game below, a strategic dream for any Nimzo Indian player, shows how strong the Black knights can become, especially if White plays negatively. It was played at Carlsbad in 1929 by the great Aron Nimzowitsch (who the defence was named after). White's play is insipid at best, but Nimzowitsch's handling of the Black side is exemplary:

Mattison - Aron Nimzowitsch, Carlsbad 1929
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 d6 6. Qc2 Qe7 7. Ba3 c5 8.g3 b6 9. Bg2 Bb7 10. O-O O-O 11. Nh4 Bxg2 12. Kxg2 Qb7+ 13. Kg1 Qa6 14. Qb3 Nc6 15. Rfd1 Na5 16. Qb5 Qxb5 17. cxb5 Nc4

Mattison - Nimzowitsch Carlsbad Chess 1929

18. Bc1 a6 19. bxa6 Rxa6 20. dxc5 bxc5 21. Ng2 Nd5 22. Rd3 Rfa8 23. e4 Ne5 0-1

3 comments:

Pawned! said...

I certainly hope you're feeling better. Welcome back... Rich

Roger Coathup said...

Thanks Rich, it's great to receive your good wishes. My liver has started aching like mad, but you've managed to cheer me up somewhat.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we all have missed you!!
Hope it is fine now, let us know if we can help.
Celinda

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Chess Tales by Roger Coathup: A collection of online articles about chess and chess players.