Classical players don't understand Hypermodern openings

@205

"Nimzowitsch favored knights over bishops"
++ No, he valued the bishop's pair.
In this game he sacrificed a pawn with 11...O-O for the bishop's pair.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1272092

To be fair, his opponent was rather weak. White tried to expand in the centre before his rooks were centralised and it all went downhill. Some nice tactics from N combined with bad play from white.

I was repeating Raymond Keene’s assertion in Aron Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal, but also have noted the slight tendency to favor knights in my reading of My System and Blockade. He certainly espouses the superiority of the knight as a blockading piece.

@230

I do not take Keene seriously, he wrote and sold many books, but of low quality.
Of course a knight and a king are best to blockade, but that does not make them stronger.
Here a game by Tarrasch that Nimzovich gave in My System to illustrate the bishop's pair:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258462

Most of Keene’s books are trash. No disagreement there. His book on Nimzowitsch and one or two others are notable exceptions. The others that seem okay are one on Stein (I don’t have it) and his book on becoming a Grandmaster, which I have and have read.

Chigorin definitely liked knights.
He has an opening named after him.
d4 d5 c4 Nc6.
Does black 'get away with that'?
Apparently yes. With that particular move order. He might 'survive'.

But in openings that feature d4 d5 as both played very early -
blocking black's c-pawn with Nc6 is usually bad - both strategically and tactically.
Black needs his c-pawn Operational in the opening. For multiple reasons.
Why is Nc6 in front of the c7 pawn 'overplayed' at lower levels of chess in openings?
Probably because many players get E4 E5 indoctrinated into them early on.
And in that kind of game - Nc6 blocking the c-pawn is much less dubious or even Solid.
But that doesn't mean it should be played in Queen's pawn openings.
Similiar for white.
Nc3 like that - great in the Vienna and Closed Sicilian and in some other e4 openings.
But in d-pawn openings - blocking the c2 pawn like that - Not Great.

Bishop development is critical in openings.
But knight development is easier to discuss.
There's less to it.
That's one of the ideas behind 'knights before bishops'.
Which should be understood but not followed blindly.
Isn't - in good play. Nor is the reverse.
But Na3 and Na6 almost never 'come in' in good opening play.
Nor do Nh3 and Nh6. Nh6 'happens' in the Gurgenidze variation.
We see Nd2 and Nd7 constantly. In good openings.
But Ne2 and Ne7 almost never.

Of the twenty legal first moves with White, Explorer tells me there are only two that I have never played: Na3 and Nh3.

However, I often play Nh6 several moves in playing the French against the advance variation.

Yes. And Nh6 happens in the Gurgenidze variation of the Caro-Kann.
That's why after e4 c6 d4 d5 ... white is considered to be better defending his pawn with Nd2 than Nc3. And does.
Because after 3) Nc3 black would have g6 ... with a g7 bishop being aided and enhanced by that knight blocking c2 pawn configuration.
Of course that doesn't mean Nc3 there 'loses'.

But here's the Irony.
Say white does play that Nc3 move (including hoping and wanting black to play g6) - so black goes ahead and plays dxe Anyway !! Not g6.
'No! We're doing main line Caro! Lets see if you want to waste 'knight-time' going after my c-bishop.'

This is something I learned from a deep dive into Tigran Petrosian's games - Nimzowitsch did have a system, but he didn't follow his own rules very rigorously. Petrosian follows the script of My System with far greater dedication to the rules than Nimzowitsch himself did. When Nimzowitsch lost games, it was almost always due to a move or set of moves which ran counter to one or more rules he gives in his book. Petrosian's moves often look wild to the classically-trains chess player, but always perfectly natural in the context of My System. This helped me solidify the concepts Nimzowitsch was writing about.

I've spoken about "chess metrics" a number of times on other forums, there is one big problem with them, especially as it relates to evaluating early players. The quality of competition changed dramatically, particularly between 1900 and 1925, when the bulk of opening and positional theory was developed.

Using the World Champions (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine) as a measuring stick, neither Tarrasch nor Nimzowitch seriously contended with them, but Nimzowitsch comes close to understanding why those players were better than he was, whereas Tarrasch foolishly thought he was favored to beat Lasker.

This is what I was getting at. The fact that most players never get close to expert level (2000) is, in my view, primarily because of bad habits or incomplete understanding acquired as a novice. It took me a while to realize it, but the 2000 level is not inherently out of reach for any serious player, but it becomes immensely more difficult if the wrong things are completely internalized before attempts are made to correct them. If we keep the developing players' mind open to everything, then they will be better players for it in the long run.

He was better than how you portray him. However, he wasn't reliable, although who was? I recall against the 2. ... a6 Sicilian, in one book he supported 3. c4 by white. Then in the next, 3. c3 and then in a further book 3. c4. Or was it the other way round? I honestly can't remember. I think 3.c4 is slightly superior to 3. c3.

He was considered by many GMs and readers alike to be a pulp chess writer but I think he was better than that and contributed a lot.

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Nimzowich was good enough to have a major opening named after him.
d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nc3 Bb4!?
black isn't keen on allowing white to play e4 there.
------------------------------------
But white can prevent the Nimzo by playing 3) Nf3 instead of 3) Nc3.
Then black has a choice between 1) b6 (the Queen's Indian defense) or - 3) d5 -
the 'orthodox' defense.
Apparently black can play c5 too.
And there's something called the Ragozin Defense.
There's the 'Bogo-Indian'.
And the 'semi-Slav'.
To name some.
White opening with d4 instead of Nf3 - doesn't prevent a gigantic spectrum of transpositional possibilities by black. Or even by white!
For example - at some point white might still get into 'Catalans' by going g3 early.

Again, the best and strictest practitioner of My System was not Nimzowitsch himself, it was Tigran Petrosian. I wouldn't have appreciated Nimzowitsch's book near as much if I hadn't reviewed how Petrosian put it to practical use.

He was a good player.

Cheers to Mr. Winawer. I have the same opinion. Also, I play the Winawer with pretty decent accuracy. French defense is my go-to for black.

I used to play it from both sides quite successfully. I do think it's weak against the early a4 line but not many people knew it.