Anyone playing the Nimzowitsch Defense (1.e4Nc6)? Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated!

agaisnt 2.d4 , d5 is fully satisfactory and comparable in soundness to the caro kahn and classical french. 2.d4 e5 is also quite playable although he has to be ready to meet the scotch game transposition via 3.nf3.

the existential question for the nimzowitsch defense is how to respond to 2.nf3!? (and to lesser degree 2.nc3). soundest is a transposition to the king pawn game with 2....e5, but this is not in the preferred style of nimzowitsch players. The question then becomes how should black play to stay in offbeat territory but get a sound game, and there is no real consensus here. They are like 6-7 different responses and people disagree on which are sound or not.

darkunorthodox88 Thank you for the response! I have been playing the Nimzowitsch often during the past two years and have had some success with it... The only instances where I've run into difficulties are the transpositions to the Scotch, and to a KP game with 2...e5. As for meeting 2.Nf3, I always play 2...Nf6, and after 3.e5Ng4 4.d4d6 5.h3Nh6 - GM Dublan's El Columpio Defense - I've gotten several good games. The positions are unbalanced (I like that), and 10 or 11 moves in it looks like Black is in trouble, but I have done well with it so far...

At one time the Nimzowitsch was my primary defense to 1 e4. My reference back then was Hugh E Myers, both the MOB and various editions of his book. I got great results well into 2000 USCF territory. I faced 2 d4 and 2 Nf3 about equally often. After 2 d4 I played 2 ... d5. After 2 Nf3 I didn't know what to do, and played 2 ... e5 or 2 ... e6 about 50/50, throwing in the occasional 2 ... d6 or 2 ... Nf6 3 e5 Nd5 -- this was before El Columpio was invented.

Then in 1984 Hanon Russell gave me a bad beating in the line 1 e4 Nc6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 f6 4 f4 Bf5 5 c3. It probably wasn't a smart opening choice against Hanon anyway, as he also played the Nimzowitsch with black, which I knew. What I didn't know was that his approach with an early c2-c3 and then sitting on the space advantage and not doing anything active would be so depressing for black. After analyzing that game and not finding any significant improvement for black ( 3 ... Bf5 4 c3 has the same objection ) I gave up the Nimzowitsch on the spot and promoted the French Defense from second string to first.

Recently I have taken up the Nimzowitsch again as a third string, with the idea 2 d4 e5 and 2 Nf3 d6. For 2 d4 e5 I use my noggin and the database, for 2 Nf3 d6 I use Bauer's book. I do quite well with 1 e4 e5 and even better with 1 e4 d6, but it's nice to keep white players on their toes. Since the reboot the occasional Nimzowitsch is scoring 100% for me in rated OTB but it's still a tiny sample size.

Black is fine against 3.e5 (3...Bf5 plus e6 is the right sequence before playing ...f6) , and the rough schedule against those f4 lines has been played many times with good results.

Something like ...g5 in such a position looks too audacious, but the engines and contemporary practice do approve it.

Black is also fine after 3.Nc3 dxe4 5.d5 Nb8! plus ...c6.

After 2.Nf3, the one and only move that appeals to me is 2...e5, everything else is speculative at best.

...g7-g5 wouldn't occur to me so thanks, I learned something. Needless to say I had no engine in 1984. Maybe a healthy aversion to repeating past trauma has kept me from properly analyzing it more recently.

For the record, Hanon Russell didn't play Nb1-d2 so early. He played Bc1-e3 then Bf1-d3!?, allowing the light-squared trade but keeping the space. Only then Nb1-d2 and O-O-O.

I hear you on 1 e4 Nc6 2 Nf3 e5. Maybe an IM doesn't face this type of player so often, but in my opinion 1 e4 Nc6 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 Nf6 4 Nc3 g6 works well against this type:

• young and therefore inexperienced in sidelines
• more attacking flair than positional sense
• plays aggressive stuff against the Pirc, for example Byrne or Austrian, never heard of the Classical nor Karpov for that matter
• favors Italian instead of Spanish (goes hand-in-hand with attacking vs positional)

If my opponent has the opposite qualities for all those bullet points, then 1 e4 Nc6 2 Nf3 d6 is indeed speculative.

the nimzo-pirc is also my own approach to 2.nf3 in the nimzowitsch although certain lines with early d5 nb8 i find not easy to play as black . He has a 0.7ish position but its very easy for black to go for the wrong set up vs the different subtle white piece formations to play with. (sometimes, you should play e5, othertimes, e6 is better, other times c6 is better, the knight can to a6 or d7 but usually one is correct over the other and not always obvious, then you have the bg4 question whether bxf3 is worth it or not and even if you willing white has h3 in almost all the lines etc). IF you play it strategically incorrect, it at the very least takes a small eternity to equalize.
The only other line that seems half decent to my eyes is the franco-nimzowitsch after 2.nf3 e6 3.d4 d5 where after e5 you play f6 right away. These lines are also like 0.7 agaisnt ideal play but i find that the resulting positions are perfect for a stronger player to slowly equalize and play for a positional win. You often end up with either the bishop pair (via, bxc6, bxc6) or white end up with a target in the e5 pawn after fxe5. Often black plays qe7-qf7, 0-0-0 and begins some sort of attack with g5.
all the other tries like 2.d6, with bg4 ideas, el columpio, 2.nf3 d5 scandinavian side line and so on i have found too dubious to be worth to try to make work.

Before giving up the Nimzowitsch, this is how I transitioned into playing the French, alongside 1 e4 Nc6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 e6. I note that even today white repertoires advocate a transposition by 1 e4 Nc6 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 d5 4 Nbd2 to the Guimard French rather than 4 e5. But in my view 4 e5 is the correct move, although of course 4 Nbd2 is good. Myers wrote about the different approaches to 2 Nf3, that his positional preference was ...d7-d6, but his results were better with 2 ... e6 3 d4 d5. He made another point, that although many of the responses to 2 Nf3 are not that good, black makes up in quantity what he lacks in quality. White has to be ready for many things, so if black switches around they can make it difficult for white. But that only applies if the Nimzowitsch is black's primary defense, as it was for Myers in his later years.

By the way, IM pfren advocates 1 e4 Nc6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 d5 Nb8. Objectively this is correct, but it's very dry. By comparison it makes even the Exchange French look exciting for black.

I'd probably just play the transposition after 2. Nf3 e5, and use the opening as a way of mixing it up half the time / avoiding sidelines like the kings gambit, center game, and bishops opening. For this I think it's fine. But for the prospect of sticking with its offbeat lines... I don't think it's worth the effort, if I wanted offbeat where my pieces are getting backed up I'd just play modern defense.