That is interesting considering Yasser wrote the introduction to the 21st century edition of My System. Maybe he just meant outdated? The book is 80+ years old after all.
Did he say it in an interview or during live commentary?
Nimzovich
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He said it during live commentary of one of the Grischuk - Gelfand candidates games. His co-commentator was GM Jan Gustaffsen. He really went on about how little he thought of the book, and said he was always surprised when other top players praised it. Did he speak highly of it in the introduction? Like I said before, it really surprised me.
May 28, 2011
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#4
Screw Seirawan. He isn't likely to be remembered as being a theoretician in the same league with Nimzovitch. Nimzovitch turned "classical" chess on its head with his hypermodern openings and revolutionary ideas, of course he was also ably assisted by Reti, Breyer, Saemisch and other famous masters as well. Just look at all the Nimzovitch openings and variations out there in fact there are so many that he got "robbed" in several instances: the FD Winawer variation should really be called the Nimzovitch Variation, the advance variations in both the FD and CKD were also pioneered by him to a great degree. How many Seirawan openings and variations are there?
Just look through the table of contents for My System and see if it still isn't a great book for beginners and intermediate players despite the hopelessly obsolete openings and a few ideas that many masters now ignore, such as "overprotection." He at least makes you aware of almost everything important you need to know: the center and development - open files - the 7th + 8th ranks - basics of endgame play - the pin - discovered check - etc etc.
BTW the link is for a caricature of my hero, all rights reserved so I did not paste it here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16902306@N05/3962187076/
Here's another GM(Kevin Spraggett) who is not much of a Nimzovich fan: http://canchess.tripod.com/Nonimzo.htm
I'd like to see a poll of GM's on My System. I'd still be surprised if it didn't produce a result very favorable toward the book.
I was listening to Yasser Sairawan on ICC the other day. He said that Nimzovich's book, my system, is just garbage, in his opinion. Really surprised me!