My System: 21st Century Edition

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Aron Nimzowitsch
Publisher:	Hays Publishing
Release date:	1991
Our price:	$17.50

My System: 21st Century Edition

Average rating: Stars

five stars and more!

I am a beginner who makes lots of blunders!
I was recommended this book to correct them! I bought it very recently from here, so I have read only a few pages. Yet! I think it is a fantastic book. The lay-out is pleasant (algebraic notation too!), the style which has been updated is very pleasant and esy to read, with lots of humour in it. The explanations are clear, the pieces of advice are laid out so they stand out, with useful examples to follow. The book is not clogged up with clutter, the diagrams are judiciously chosen to fit the examples. the explained lines are in bold so it is easy to set up your chess board, so much so that you can apply straight away the advice given.
This book has been criticised by John Watson. This criticism made me cautious about buying it. But now that I have it, oh boy, I am so delighted, because it really stands out. Nimzowitsch was after all a very great player. Read this, soak the instructions and you will find yourself in pleasant company and learn rapidly.

May be you need to read Watson's "SECRETS OF MODERN CHESS STRATEGY" to see what has happened since Nimzowitsch. However, for the time being, be delighted by Nimzowitsch himself and learn his instructions.
IM Yasser Seirawan states in the introduction to the book:"Nimzowitsch has induced me to think about his ideas" and that is the big thing about Nimzowitsch: he makes you think, and because of that, you come to the surprised conclusion: "Ahaa! But that a good idea"
Buy it, and be delighted and improve your chess thoughts dramatically.

My System: 21st Century Edition - Aron Nimzowitsch

Yes, Watson did the right thing for this classic work.

In 1985 I bought this book (1975 ed., pub. by McKay.) I tried to read it and didn't understand much. Fifteen years later, I tried again and it was still. Now I need to read it before going to the next level with Watson's book.
Nimzovich's My System is a difficult book to write (and confusing at times to read.) He wrote it for both advanced players and beginners. For I'm a beginner, I only can reflect from this standpoint. There are a lot of confusions to me. There are 3 parts in My System: 1) The Elements, 2) Positional Play and 3) Illustrated games (I bought this book because his games inside were so impressive).
I just went quickly over the dated explanations (didn't go over the detail examples) because I want to start Watson soon.
So far with part 1 alone I observed these confusions.
---(A.N.)
Chapter 1 section 2: A Pawn move must not in itself be regarded as a developing move, but merely as an aid to development. An important postulate for the beginner is the following:-If it were possible to develop the pieces without the aid of Pawn moves, the Pawn-less advance would be the correct one; for, as suggested, the Pawn is not a fighting unit in the sense that his crossing of the frontier is to be feared by the enemy, since obviously the attacking force of the Pawns is small compared with that of the pieces. However, the Pawn-less advance is in reality impossible of execution; since the enemy Pawn-center, thanks to its inherent aggressiveness, would drive back the pieces which we had developed. For this reason we should, in order to safeguard the development of our pieces, first build up a Pawn-center.
---(H.H.)
a) In the old time, people played "brilliantly" mainly with pieces; they delivered "lightning" checkmates. With the advance defense the attack by pieces alone is easily and forcefully repulsed.
b) Without Pawn-moves, no Queen, Bishops or Rooks can be developed.
c) Here Nimzovich conceded that the enemy Pawns would repulse our Knights therefore we have to push the Pawns to challenge their Pawns for our piece development. So can the Pawns get "partial credit" for development points?
d) We develop pieces in order to attack opponent's camp. Against advance defense, any attack, no matter how small, even by a Pawn would snowball the attack. So a Pawn is worth the development goal.
e) If Pawn-move is non-developing move, then is there any game that the winner never develops any piece? In Chernev's "Wonders and Curiosities of Chess", Marshall (or Tarrasch? or Rubinstein?) made only a dozen or so of Pawn moves and won the game!
---(A.N.)
In chapter 7 (The pin) he wrote: A pinned piece's defensive power is only imaginary. He only makes a gesture as if he would defense: in reality he is crippled and immobile. Hence we may confidently place our pieces en prise to a pinned piece, for he dare not lay hands on it.
---(H.H.)
Really? The pinned piece still controls the squares within its attacking range. Therefore it can hold back the enemy King who tries to approach and help increasing the pressure on the defender (for example: in the endgame). A pinned Rook (or Bishop) can still pin an enemy Knight (or Pawn) from joining the battle, is it doing defensive task? How about the attacking power of a pinned piece? A pinned black Bishop at b7 still can support an attack of another piece at white Castle at g2-square.
A special case of pin and counter-pin is from the game of xxx-xxx in (maybe) Burgess's Mammoth's Greatest Chess Games. (Please wait. I try to recall the exact location.)
---(A.N.)
Chapter 8 section 1 (Discovered Check): The degree of relationship between the pin and the discovered check is more closely defined. Where should the piece which discovers the check move to?
---(H.H.)
Huh? The pinned piece can't move. The piece discovering the check can move freely to where it increases his side's attacking strength. The side X-rays the enemy King is in control of that sector of the board.
---(A.N.)
Chapter 8 section 2: The see-saw. The long-range masking piece can move to any square in his line of motion without spending a tempo, that is to say, wholly gratis.
---(H.H.)
I think now we can write: The Windmill check. The long-range piece (Rook or Bishop; why not the Queen? Guess) can give check and uncover check while killing all pieces along its attacking range and still maintain the right of move.
Nimzovich was so attached to the famous game between Torre-Lasker (Moscow, 1925) (Diagram 106) and Diagram 104, that he forgot in Diagram 103 (right-hand side) there is a mate in 4.
---(A.N.)
Chapter 8 section 3: Double check. Is brought about by the masking piece also giving check. The effectiveness of a double check lies in the fact that of the three possible parries to a check, two are nugatory, namely the capture of the piece giving check and the interposition of a piece. Flight is the one and only resource.
---(H.H.)
It's simpler like: The double check forces the enemy King to move because either simultaneously capturing both checking pieces or simultaneously blocking the checks on two directions is impossible. If one of the checks is from the Knight, this is self-evident.
----------------
These are the confusions I have in part 1, I will continue with part 2.
This book is a five star book because many GMs and players recommend it. I need to read more and more to clear all these confusions.
It is the second scientific work in chess. The first is Steinitz' book. Lasker's and Capablanca's books are not comparable. I haven't read Tarrasch yet.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Part 2 (03/03/05):
I think I begin to understand Nimzovich's "My System". In this book, he contracted all the significant chess concepts into one volume, which he called his hyper-modern. Some ideas were discovered and/or invented by himself, some he credited to the teaching of other masters, Tarrasch for example. He incorporated all these into his hyper-modern strategy. The first part of the book has 7 chapters, which he called the Elements and used them to build his molecules, which he expressed in the Positional Play (part 2).
The first 3 chapters of part, Nimzovich explained about the Yin and Yang (strength and weakness) of: the center, the mobile center pawns, the double Pawns and the isolated Pawns.
In chapter 4, "I have arrived at the conclusion that the advantage of the two Bishops can be called neither an element nor a stratagem," wrote Nimzovich. Now, that is more confusion that Confucius. Before him, Steinitz' school and after him, the Soviet school, the Bishop pair can be regarded as both; now he just went "to where no-man had gone before."
Chapter 5 introduced the concept of over-protection. This word "over" causes me some discomfort. The fight between two equal armies, if you put too much force in one place, there will be somewhere you lack of protection (remember Sun Tzu.) I recalled at least in two books about Fischer's games, the authors praised on how economical Fischer used his pieces. Then if we come to study Kasparov's games, his chess "economy" is worth the classic.
Chapter 6 is to maneuver against the weakness. Naturally we won't attack an enemy's strong point. We have to use decoy, deception to outmaneuver him or induce him to make more weaknesses. (I think the modern "rule of two weaknesses" will prevail.)
I recall the modern chess books emphasize very much on the topic Exchange. Exchange in chess is positional. Nimzovich gave only 3 pages (in part 1) about this topic; maybe he didn't consider it as important.
In summary, many GMs and players praise his book. I think his "My System" is a collection of theories and discoveries he obtained and felt important during his time. He wrote it mainly for himself (for preparation), and in order to persuade sponsors so that he could get financial backup for the match of World Championship (like Alekhine's "My Best Games...").
We are fortunate that he released the book for publication, so we could learn something from him. But time has changed, and many generations have passed. Nimzovich's book is still a treasure.

Aron Nimzowitsch - My System: 21st Century Edition

Un clásico

Este libro en definitiva es un clásico de la literatura ajedrecística. Lo recomiendo para jugadores con buena práctica del juego, pero poco conocimiento del juego posicional.

Evidentemente, algunas de las apreciaciones respecto al juego posicional son diferentes hoy día, pero el texto presenta una base magnífica para materiales más amplios como el texto de Pachman.

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