Defense and Counterattack! (Super Nezh)
COMPLAINT: It's NOT FAIR! You hear, from people like Batgirl, Simaginfan or myself, about certain chess players, in this case Rashid G. Nezhmetdinov (1912-1974), you even see some of that player's games on this site, and when yo want to get a book with their games, you find it is priced at.....$200.00! WHAT?
Yes, ladies and gents, this fascinating book called "Super Nezh" was a labor of love by Alex Pishkin.
And yet, when I looked today in Amazon (April 29, 2020), this book is priced at almost $200!
Take a look!
Now, I know about ebooks and all that, but believe me, it is a great pleasure to grab an actual chess book and open it to any page, and discover something new, exciting or beautiful!
OK, so much for the complaints section. Let's get to the good part.
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The author of this book, Alex Pishkin, was an International Master of Correspondence Chess. He passed away in 1999, after the second draft of this book was ready. The book was published in the year 2000.
This book is an absolute jewel, with an extensive biographical section. The chapters are titled: Masterpieces, The Fight, Attack, Defense and Counterattack, Strategy, Opening Novelties, The Endgame, Small Raisins.
Nezhmetdinov is best known for his combinations, so he can be labeled in a typical 1-second description as a "tactician". This is unfair. He is definitely a Romantic, and did love to attack! But to have victories against such GMs as Spassky, Geller, Tal and Polugaevsky, you had to be able to play good "positional" chess! By the way, like any GM of his class (I call him a GM, even though he never was awarded the title officially- "If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck!"), he was very good in endgame play. But that is a subject for another post!
Nezhmetdinov, in an interview from 1973:
"Creativity and beauty will be gradually leaving chess, with the sport/tournament side prevailing. We will be replaced by a new generation of chess players whose main skill is out-calculating the opponents. The depth of strategical and tactical thought, the subtlety of non-standard ideas, everything we call "romanticism" will be losing importance."
In a recent post, (https://www.chess.com/blog/kamalakanta/when-is-a-strong-centre-not-a-strong-centre-answer-when-nezhmetdinov-faces-tal ), I published a game he won against Tal in great positional style. The game appears in the book in the Chapter called "Strategy".
For those of you who did not see that game, here it is, with comments:
In a comment to a recent post on another Nezhmetdinov game, Simaginfan published this game, which is included in the book under the Chapter "Defense and Counterattack".
And this is what inspired me to do this post; the fact that Simaginfan pointed out (and quite truthfully) that the Aronin game is not as well as other Nezh's games, and also the fact that the book is either unavailable in most chess book sites, or plainly unaffordable! Amazon even has a "new" copy listed at almost $500! Now, it is a good book, but it is NOT worth $500.
So the aim of this blog is to share some of the games from the chapter titled "defense and Counterattack", and I hope to post games with comments which, for a player of my caliber (or lack of it), is quite essential. I might learn something!
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DEFENSE AND COUNTERATTACK
"Nezh didn't like to defend, namely, he couldn't stand positions in which one had to carry out a passive, heavy defense. His play was weaker in such contests. Being aware of this, most rivals (not even the leading ones) often succeeded by offering him long, arduous play, aimed at pressuring Nezh's position.
Obliged to defend, Nezh was always on the lookout for counterplay, or a tactical subtlety, a sudden turnover. When he found it, he was truly inspired and played with great energy."
-Alex Pishkin in "Super Nezh"
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Today's main game is the game Simaginfan pointed out, Aronin-Nezhmetdinov, 7th Russian Championship, Kuibyshev, 1947.
In this game, a King's Indian Defense, White starts a swift attack against Black's Queenside, aimed at winning a pawn. Nezh Gladly sacrifices his d-pawn to accelerate his development. The problem is that White's idea, to succeed, involved driving away Black's knight from c5 with an early b4, before Black could secure the Knight's position with....c5, as is typical in the King's Indian. The move b4 by White weakened the square c3 AND opened the possibility of tactical themes against White's rook on a1. Let us take a look; comments by Alex Pishkin:
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1954
The year 1954 was a very good year for Nezhmetdinov. He shared first prize at an international tournament in Bucharest.
In the USSR Championship in Kiev, 1954, Nezhmetdinov had a good showing.
In this tournament he had victories over Geller and Flohr, two world-class opponents!
The game against Geller is also given in this "Defense and Counterattack" chapter, and is the next and last game that we will cover from that chapter.
In this game against Geller, who by the way had played in the 1953 Zurich Candidates' Tournament, Nezhmetdinov goes slightly astray, and suddenly Geller has a kingside attack. Instead of collapsing, Nezh buckles down and defends very well, and a few moves later it is Geller's turn to go wrong. One move before adjournment, Geller makes a move that looks good, but that actually loses the game! Nezhmetdinov pounces, and 5 moves later Geller resigns!
