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
