Quality 2007 Nimzowitsch My System.pdf

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My System
A chess Olanual on totally new principles
Aaron Nirnzowitsch
This Quality Chess edition, first published in 2007, is a new translation of the
work originally published in Germany 1925.
Quality Chess Europe AB
Vegagatan 18, SE-413 09 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Copyright
©
Quality Chess 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostat-
ic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission
of the publisher.
ISBN 10: 91-976005-3-9
ISBN 13: 978-91-976005-3-8
All sales or enquiries should be directed to Quality Chess Europe AB,
Vegagatan 18, SE-413 09 Gothenburg, Sweden.
tel: +46-31-244790 fax: +46-31-2447 14
e-mail: info@qualitychessbooks.com
website: www.qualitychessbooks.com
Distributed in US and Canada by SCB Distributors, Gardena California
www.scbdistributors.com
Translated by Ian Adams
Edited by Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw
Typeset: Colin McNab
Cover Design: Carole Dunlop
Compilation ofNimzowitsch's chess career: Yuri Garrett
Proofreading: Danny Kristiansen
Printed in Estonia by Tallinna Raamatutriikikoja LLC
Foreword
It
would be interesting to choose the best chess book from the 20
th
century.
My System
by Aaron
Nimzowitsch would certainly be my favourite, and I
think
this would be a common choice. According
to Mikhail Tal, this book is
"full
of the elixir of chess youth". "What are the secrets behind the powerful
effect
My
System
has on its readers?
I think that the magical power of this book can be found in the fact· that the author managed to
be ahead of his time. Already in 1925 he expressed still relevant modem ideas
like
prophylaxis, pawn
activity, and the blockade. The impulse that originated from Nimzowitsch was so immense that the
thinking of chess developed in his direction. If you look at the games of Petrosian and Karpov you
immediately find the traces ofNimzowitsch's "system". These outstanding chess players developed to
perfection the prophylactic style of preventing the opponent's possibilities.
Nirnzowitsch's mark is recognisable to some extent in every top player. "When I contemplate the
later games of Kasparov, I am convinced that many of his decisions are based on purely prophylactic
grounds.
Nirnzowitsch did not write a simple handbook ofopening lines, but a manual ofchess. The opinions,
ideas, and generalisations that he describes gave rise to a true revolution, whose consequences we can
correctly evaluate today.
Anur
Yusupov
From the publishers
"When we decided to publish a new edition of My System our primary intention was to produce
an updated translation. The second issue was which source we should use for this translation. We
decided on the 2005 Rattman German edition, which contains a number of improvements from
previous editions. We also decided to computer-check, within reason, the games in the book. The
Rattman edition already had some interesting observations on the original text, which we decided
to retain with their corrections in the text or as footnotes on the page (pages 15, 64, 74, 76, 84, 106,
126, 156) and their references to the editor.
We have also added two small essays at the end of the book. The first is a general discussion about
the current relevance of My System; the second contains just over a dozen positions from the book
where we think a new opinion might interest the reader. These positions have also been marked with
superscript throughout the book.
We would like to thank Yuri Garrett of Caissa ltalia for his superb efforts in researching
Nirnzowitsch's tournament and match results, which are included towards the end of this book as
the article "The Chess Career of Aaron Nimzowitsch".
We hope that our new edition of My System
will
reveal this classic to a new generation of young
chess players.
December 2006
Preface
In general, I am not at all in favour ofwriting a preface; but in this case it seems necessary because the
whole business is so novel, that a preface would be a welcome aid.
My new system did not arise all at once, but rather it grew slowly and gradually, or as one might say
organically. Of course the main idea, the thorough analysing one by one of the different elements of
chess strategy, is based on inspiration. But it would in no way be sufficient, should I wish to discuss
open files, to say that such and such a file should be occupied and exploited, or if talking about passed
pawns to say that this particular one should be stopped. No, it is necessary to go into some detail. It
may sound somewhat amusing, but let me assure you, my dear reader, that for me the passed pawn
possesses a soul, just like a human being; it has unrecognised desires which slumber deep inside it and
it has fears, the very existence ofwhich it can but scarcely divine. I feel the same about the pawn chain
and the other elements of strategy. I now intend to give to you concerning each of these elements a
series of laws and rules which you can use, rules which do go into a lot of detail and which
will
help
you to attain clarity even about the apparendy mysterious
links
between events, such as are to be
found over the
64
squares of our beloved chessboard.
Part II
ofthe book then goes into positional play, especially in its neo-romantic form.
It
is frequendy
claimed that I am the father ofthe neo-romantic school. Therefore it should be ofinterest to hear what
I
think
about it.
Manuals are customarily written in a
dry,
instructive style.
It
is thought that one would somehow
lose face,
if
one allowed a humorous tone to appear, because what does humour have to do in a
chess manual!
I
cannot share this point of view. In fact I would go further: I consider it to be totally
wrong, since real humour often contains more inner truth than the most solemn seriousness.
As
far
as
I
am concerned, I
am
a great
fan
of parallels with an amusing effect, and thus I like to draw on the
events of everyday life in order by doing so to throw some light on complicated happenings over the
chessboard.
At many points
in
the book I have added a schematic diagram so that the structure of my thought
can be seen clearly. This step was taken not only on pedagogical grounds, but also for reasons connected
with personal security- since less gifted critics (and these do exist) only wish to or only can take into
account isolated details and not the more complicated underlying structure which is the true content
of my book. The individual parts, apparent by name at first sight, are seemingly so simple, but that is
their merit. To have reduced the chaos inherent to a certain number of rules linked to each other in
various relationships of cause and effect, that is exacdy what I think I can be proud of. For example,
the
5
special cases linked to the
7
mand
8
mranks sound simple, but how difficult it was to tease them
out of the surrounding chaos! Or the open file or even the pawn chains! Of course, at each stage things
become more difficult, because the book is intended to be progressive in level. But I do not consider
this growing difficulty to be armour which
will
protect me from the attacks of those critics who use
only light weapons. I insist on this only for the sake of my readers. I
will
also be attacked for making
use of a great number of my own games. But I shall not be downcast by this attack either. After all, am
I
not justified in illustrating
my
system with
my
games?! Moreover, I even include some games (well)
played by amateurs, but this does not make me one.
I
now confide this first edition to the public view.
I
do so with a clear conscience. My book will have
its faults, it would be impossible for me to cast light into all the corners of strategy, but I consider that
I
have written the first real manual about the game of chess and not simply about the openings.
August 1925
The author

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