“In relating the Nimzowitsch'S anti-smoking anecdote on pages 104-105 of the book,

Chess Panorama (Radnor, 1975), W. Lombardy and D. Daniels presented the punch-line as follows:

In this situation Nimzowitsch'S opponent took out a cigarette case and put it on the chess table. Nimsowitsch hated cigarette smoke and called the director and filed a complaint.

The director said, "He has not lit a cigarette and there is no smoke. So your complaint is noted but it is not valid."

“I know”, Nimzowitsch replied, “but he threatens to smoke, and you know as well as I that in chess the threat is often stronger than the execution”.

(This was one of the basic principles elaborated in Nimzowitsch’s brilliant work My System.)

(’The threats System.')

Most of the time in chess there are constant threats made that forces an opponent to defend each of the threats.

I don't like threats against me. I like to constantly threaten so that I am in control of the game, but it generally doesn''t work and I lose many games.

Do you always see most of the threats that are made against you in your games?

Do you create the threats against your opponents?

Maybe you are creating threats against you that you opponets hasn't even thought of and they are all in your mind?