2nd Round of the 2024 Action Tournament - and The Last Influential Writer of All Time

Aron Nimzowitsch 

The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between

4pm and 10pm

at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI. 

Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'.

Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!

Sorry for the delay in posting. Life gets in the way of chess sometimes.

Like for instance, my dishwasher apparently broke. And my automatic dirty laundry basket, that cleans and folds clothes, doesn’t empty itself right now. Depressing.

Also, my wife went in for a knee replacement. (Insert laugh or groan.)

Round 2 of our unadvertised annual Action Tournament, with the player with White listed first, has these pairings:

Board 1: Luke M – Pete B

Board 2: Vince V – John O

Board 3: Jon C – Ken T

Board 4: Mike N – Thomas V

Board 5: Charlie S – Jeff S

Board 6: Jaden C – Ken L

Board 7: Paul M – Joe W

Board 8: Desmond W – George H

Now for our final instalment of the series; Writers that Change Chess History

Aron Nimzowitsch

In about 1906 or 1907 a young chess master was breaking onto the scene by the name of Aron Nimzowitsch. Born in Riga, young Aron learned chess from his father, who was a wealthy timber merchant.

Nimzowitsch and Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch were two grandmasters that had a running feud at the time over the correct way to play chess. Nimzowitsch was from the "hypermodern" style of chess - where the center could be controlled from the wings with a fianchettoed bishop, thus allowing over extension of your opponent's pawns which would then be attacked from the wings. Tarrasch was from the "classical" style of chess - control the center with pawns and take open files. It is said they did not speak to each other for decades!

Nimzowitsch had said that in his early chess career he was only interested in a 'combination' style of play. That gained him minor successes. After finding out from bitter experience that this alone was not enough against masterly opposition, Aron retired from active play and worked out his highly original ideas on the game.

He rejoined tournament play post-World War I and his results were formidable:

1st place at Copenhagen in 1923 ahead of Tartakower and Spielmann 

1st place tied with Rubinstein at Marienbad in 1925

1st place in Dresden in 1926 ahead of Alekhine

1st place in Hanover in 1926 over Rubinstein

Two 1st place tie finishes in 1927 against the best of that time.

1st place in Berlin in 1928 ahead of Bogolyubov

and a 1st place in Carlsbad in 1929 ahead of Capablanca, Spielmann, Rubinstein, Tartakower, Bogolyubov and Vidmar.

This should have earned Nimzowitsch the right to challenge for the World Championship, but he could never seem to find the financial backing to challenge. Back in those days, the challenger had to find the prize fund somehow.

So, during this period Alekhine and Bogolyubov played a couple of times.

Also, during this time, Aron put his theories on paper in a book called My System. This book is broken into two sections. The first is on the elements of chess strategy and the other is more advanced and looks at positional play. It is certainly one of the classic chess works of all time!

Aron also wrote a follow up book: Chess Praxis