Aron Nimzowitsch
Encyclopedia
Aron Nimzowitsch (7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

-born Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns
Hypermodernism (chess)
Hypermodernism is a school of chess that emerged after World War I. It featured challenges on the chess ideologies presented by central European masters, such as on Wilhelm Steinitz’ approach to the centre. It also challenged in particular the dogmatic rules set down by Siegbert Tarrasch...

.

Life

Born in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 in Livonia
Livonia
Livonia is a historic region along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It was once the land of the Finnic Livonians inhabiting the principal ancient Livonian County Metsepole with its center at Turaida...

, then part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, the Jewish German-speaking Nimzowitsch came from a wealthy family, where he learned chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 from his father, who was a merchant. In 1904, he traveled to Berlin to study philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, but set aside his studies soon and began a career as a professional chess player that same year. He won his first international tournament at Munich 1906. Then, he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

 at St. Petersburg 1913/14 (the eighth All-Russian Masters' Tournament
Russian Chess Championship
-Imperial Russia:In 1874, Emanuel Schiffers defeated Andrey Chardin in a match held in St. Petersburg with five wins and four losses. Schiffers was considered the first Russian champion until his student, Mikhail Chigorin, defeated him in a match held in St. Petersburg in 1879...

).

During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Nimzowitsch was in the Baltic
Baltic region
The terms Baltic region, Baltic Rim countries, and Baltic Rim refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea.- Etymology :...

 war zone. He escaped being drafted into one of the armies by feigning madness, insisting that a fly was on his head. He then escaped to Berlin, and gave his first name as Arnold, possibly to avoid anti-Semitic persecution.

Nimzowitsch eventually moved to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in 1922, which coincided with his rise to the world chess elite, where he lived for the rest of his life in one small rented room. In Copenhagen, he twice won the Nordic Chess Championship
Nordic Chess Championship
The first Nordic Chess Championship took place in Stockholm in 1897.-Winners:The winners in the Nordic Championship in 1934 and 1936, Aron Nimzowitsch and Erik Lundin, got the Nordiske kongresmestre title, as the champion 1930, Erik Andersen, defended his title with 3-3 against Gideon Ståhlberg at...

, in 1924 and 1934. He obtained Danish citizenship and lived in Denmark until his death in 1935. Although he had long suffered from heart trouble, his early death was unexpected; taken ill suddenly at the end of 1934, he lay bedridden for three months before dying of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

. He is buried in Bispebjerg
Bispebjerg
Bispebjerg is one of the 10 official districts of Copenhagen, Denmark. It lies on the north border of the municipality. It covers an area of 5.39 km², has a population of 40,033, and a population density of 7,389 per km²....

 Cemetery in Copenhagen.

Chess career

The height of Nimzowitsch's career was the late 1920s and early 1930s. Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...

 places him as the third best player in the world from 1927 to 1931, behind Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

 and José Capablanca. His most notable successes were first-place finishes at Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 1923, Marienbad 1925, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 1926, Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

 1926, the Carlsbad 1929 chess tournament
Carlsbad 1929 chess tournament
The fourth international Carlsbad tournament was held in the Kurhaus Hotel Imperial. Twenty two great masters, under the direction of Viktor Tietz, played in the resort Karlsbad from July 30 to August 28, 1929. Only the world champion Alexander Alekhine did not partake but during the event he...

, and second place behind Alekhine at the San Remo 1930 chess tournament
San Remo 1930 chess tournament
San Remo 1930 was the first international chess tournament held in the famous San Remo casino. Sixteen chess masters from Europe and the Americas, including the World Champion, played a round robin tournament from 16 January to 4 February 1930...

. Nimzowitsch never developed a knack for match play, though; his best match success was a draw with Alekhine, but the match consisted of only two games and took place in 1914, thirteen years before Alekhine became world champion.

Nimzowitsch never beat Capablanca, but fared better against Alekhine. He even beat Alekhine with the black pieces
White and Black in chess
In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...

, in their short 1914 match at St Petersburg. One of Nimzowitsch's most famous games is his celebrated immortal zugzwang game
Immortal Zugzwang game
The Immortal Zugzwang Game is a chess game between Friedrich Saemisch and Aron Nimzowitsch, played in Copenhagen 1923. It gained its name because the final position is sometimes considered a rare instance of zugzwang occurring in the middlegame...

 against Sämisch
Friedrich Sämisch
Friedrich Sämisch was a German chess grandmaster .-Main results:* 2nd at Berlin 1920...

 at Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 1923. Another game on this theme is his win over Paul Johner at Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 1926. When in form, Nimzowitsch was very dangerous with the black pieces, scoring many fine wins over top players.

Legacy

Nimzowitsch is considered one of the most important players and writers in chess history. His works influenced numerous other players, including Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :...

, Richard Réti
Richard Réti
Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king...

, Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...

, Bent Larsen
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess Grandmaster and author. Larsen was known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play and he was the first western player to pose a serious challenge to the Soviet Union's dominance of chess...

, and Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...

, and his influence is still felt today.

He wrote three books on chess strategy: Mein System (My System), 1925, Die Praxis meines Systems (The Practice of My System), 1929, commonly known as Chess Praxis, and Die Blockade (The Blockade), 1925, though much in the latter book is generally held to be a rehash of material already presented in Mein System. The Blockade has recently been reissued in a volume containing both the German original and the English translation published by Hardinge Simpole. It is said that 99 out of 100 chess masters have read Mein System; consequently, most consider it to be Nimzowitsch's greatest contribution to chess. It sets out Nimzowitsch's most important ideas, while his second-most influential work, Chess Praxis, elaborates upon these ideas, adds a few new ones, and has immense value as a stimulating collection of Nimzowitsch's own games accompanied by his idiosyncratic, hyperbolic commentary which is often as entertaining as instructive.

Nimzowitsch's chess theories
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...

 when first propounded flew in the face of widely held orthodoxies enunciated by the dominant theorist of the era, Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century....

, and by his disciples. Tarrasch's rigid generalizations drew on the earlier work of Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...

 and were upheld by Tarrasch's sharp tongue when dismissing the opinions of doubters. While the greatest players of the time, among them Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

, Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...

, and Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...

, clearly did not allow their play to be hobbled by blind adherence to general concepts that the center had to be controlled by pawns
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...

, that development had to happen in support of this control, that rooks always belong on open files, that wing openings were unsound — core ideas of Tarrasch's chess philosophy as popularly understood — beginners were taught to think of these generalizations as unalterable principles.

Nimzowitsch supplemented many of the earlier simplistic assumptions about chess strategy by enunciating in his turn a further number of general concepts of defensive play aimed at achieving one's own goals by preventing realization of the opponent's plans. Notable in his "system" were concepts such as overprotection of pieces and pawns under attack, control of the center by pieces instead of pawns, the blockade of the opposing pieces (notably the passed pawns), and prophylaxis
Prophylaxis (chess)
In the game of chess, prophylaxis or a prophylactic move is a move that stops the opponent from taking action in a certain area for fear of some type of reprisal. Prophylactic moves are aimed at not just improving one's position, but preventing the opponent from improving their own...

. He was also a leading exponent of the fianchetto
Fianchetto
In chess the fianchetto is a pattern of development wherein a bishop is developed to the second rank of the adjacent knight file, the knight pawn having been moved one or two squares forward....

 development of the bishops
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...

. Perhaps most importantly, Nimzowitsch formulated the terminology still in use for various complex chess strategies. Others had used these ideas in practice, but he was the first to present them systematically as a lexicon of themes accompanied by extensive taxonomical observations.

Grandmaster (GM) Raymond Keene
Raymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...

 writes that Nimzowitsch "was one of the world's leading Grandmasters for a period extending over a quarter of a century, and for some of that time he was the obvious challenger for the world championship. ... [He was also] a great and profound chess thinker, second only to Steinitz, and his works - Die Blockade, My System and Chess Praxis - established his reputation as one of the father figures of modern chess." GM Robert Byrne called him "perhaps the most brilliant theoretician and teacher in the history of the game." GM Jan Hein Donner
Jan Hein Donner
Johannes Hendrikus Donner was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. Donner was born in The Hague and won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957, and 1958. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, awarded him the GM title in 1959. He played 11 times for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads...

 called Nimzowitsch "a man who was too much of an artist to be able to prove he was right and who was regarded as something of a madman in his time. He would be understood only long after his death."

Many chess openings and variations are named after Nimzowitsch, the most famous being the Nimzo-Indian Defence
Nimzo-Indian Defence
The Nimzo-Indian Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:This hypermodern opening was developed by Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch who introduced it to master-level chess in the early 20th century. Unlike most Indian openings the Nimzo-Indian does not involve an immediate fianchetto,...

 (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4) and the less often played Nimzowitsch Defence
Nimzowitsch Defence
The Nimzowitsch Defence is a somewhat unusual chess opening, in which Black moves 1... Nc6 in reply to White's 1.e4. It is an example of a hypermodern opening where Black invites White to occupy the centre of the board at an early stage with pawns...

 (1.e4 Nc6). Nimzowitsch biographer Grandmaster Raymond Keene
Raymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...

 and others have referred to 1.f4 followed by 2.b3 as the Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack
Larsen's Opening
Larsen's Opening is a chess opening starting with the move:It is named after the Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen...

. Keene wrote a book about the opening with that title. All of these openings exemplify Nimzowitsch's ideas about controlling the center with pieces instead of pawns. Nimzowitsch was also vital in the development of two important systems in the French Defence
French Defence
The French Defence is a chess opening. It is characterised by the moves:The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, though it can result in a somewhat cramped game for Black in the early stages...

, the Winawer Variation (in some places called the Nimzowitsch Variation; its moves are 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4) and the Advance Variation (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5). He also pioneered two provocative variations of the Sicilian Defence
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...

: the Nimzowitsch Variation, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6, which invites 3.e5 Nd5 (similar to Alekhine's Defence
Alekhine's Defence
Alekhine's Defence is a hypermodern chess opening that begins with the moves:Black tempts White's pawns forward to form a broad pawn centre, with plans to undermine and attack the White structure later in the spirit of hypermodern defence. White's imposing mass of pawns in the centre often includes...

) and 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 d5?! (the latter regarded as dubious today). International Master John L. Watson
John L. Watson
John Leonard Watson is a chess International Master and author.Watson was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He was educated at Brownell-Talbot, Harvard, and the University of California at San Diego, where he took his degree in engineering...

 has dubbed the line 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4 the "Nimzo-English", employing this designation in Chapter 11 of his recent book Mastering the Chess Openings, Volume 3 (Gambit Publications, 2008, ISBN 978-904600-98-5).

Personality

There are many entertaining anecdotes regarding Nimzowitsch—some less savory than others. For example, he once missed first prize in a tournament in Berlin by losing to Sämisch, and when it became clear he was going to lose the game, Nimzowitsch stood up on the table and shouted, "Gegen diesen Idioten muss ich verlieren!" ("That I should lose to this idiot!").

Nimzowitsch was annoyed by his opponents' smoking. A popular, but probably apocryphal, story is that once when an opponent laid a cigar on the table, he complained to the tournament arbiters, "he is threatening to smoke, and as an old player you must know that the threat is stronger than the execution".

Nimzowitsch had lengthy and somewhat bitter dogmatic conflicts with Tarrasch over whose ideas constituted 'proper' chess.

Nimzowitsch's vanity and faith in his ideas of overprotection provoked Hans Kmoch
Hans Kmoch
Johann "Hans" Joseph Kmoch was an Austrian-Dutch-American chess International Master , International Arbiter , and a chess journalist and author, for which he is best known....

 to write a parody about him in February 1928 in the Wiener Schachzeitung. This consisted of a mock game against the fictional player "Systemsson", supposedly played and annotated by Nimzowitsch himself. The annotations gleefully exaggerate the idea of overprotection, as well as asserting the true genius of the wondrous idea. Kmoch was in fact a great admirer of Nimzowitsch, and the subject of the parody himself was amused at the effort.

Kmoch also wrote an article about his nine years with Nimzowitsch:
Nimzovich suffered from the delusion that he was unappreciated and that the reason was malice. All it took to make him blossom, as I later learned, was a little praise. His paranoia was most evident when he dined in company. He always thought he was served much smaller portions than everyone else. He didn't care about the actual amount but only about the imagined affront. I once suggested that he and I order what the other actually wanted and, when the food was served, exchange plates. After we had done so, he shook his head in disbelief, still thinking that he had received the smaller portion.


Nimzovitsch's colleague Tartakower observed of him, "He pretends to be crazy in order to drive us all crazy."

Notable chess games


External links

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