The opening ideas and plans for both colors, main variations and theory of the tricky Nimzowitsch Defense.
The Nimzowitsch Defense is one of those openings that make you want to vomit when you see them played against you and you are unprepared for them. It’s definitely a surprise to the e4 player, which is why you simply have to know how to play against it!
It is by definition a hyper modern opening, meaning that black allows white to occupy the center and gain space by controlling the key squares along the fifth rank. The idea is, similar to other modern openings, to undermine that center later on, thus making white create weaknesses and making your pieces come to life.
Garry Kasparov once said that the opening wasn’t really ever proven to be sound, but that it should be playable. And most people, I feel, share that opinion; it looks dubious, but it’s hard to prove it.
It starts with the provocative, visually strange and illogical 1…Nc6. Black doesn’t fight for central control with his pawns, he doesn’t prepare a central strike with c6, d6 or e6, nor does he do something to help his king castle. Instead he develops a queenside knight!
White has three responses. On lower levels, d4 is the main move. It does seem visually most appealing and it makes perfect sense. You take up the space black has given up to you, and if black does nothing, you are going to expand further. But it’s not as simple as that. Black’s next move is going to be either e5 or d5, in either case asking a question to white and making him commit either to a closed center in which black is going to have at least one strong pawn break to play for, or to a semi-open center in which black is going to be equal.
This is perhaps why most strong players choose to fight the Nimzowitsch Defense with the so called declined variation – the move Nf3, not going for central space and waiting to see what black does. The third option is what I find most interesting; continuing with a counter intuitive move for white – Nc3.
All three moves are playable, and in theory white should stand better in almost all variation. This is far from simple to prove, though.
One of the main features of the Nimzowitsch Defense is the fact that it can transpose to several different openings, the Scandinavian, the Pirc, the French, the Scotch, the Caro-Kann, the Vienna game, and main line e4 e5 openings. This is what makes it very complex to learn. The best way to go about it is to study and play the variations which end up similar to what you know well and usually play.
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