Classical players don't understand Hypermodern openings

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/hypermodernism-debate

Right.

But you have to learn the hypermodern elements to understand that dynamic, and too many players simply don't bother to.

Actually, the QGA is not hypermodern at all.  Nimzowitsch specifically instructs never to accept a gambit that captures away from the center.

Because he invented it.

When you invent something, you get to decide what it is.

Proves nothing. Every chess principle has exceptions.

Don't move the same piece twice in the opening? What about 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5

Do you advocate just leaving the Knight on f6? Or do you claim that the principle is worthless?

Or do you use a bit of common sense instead, and admit that tactics trumps basic principles?

"That's exactly the sort of complacency that Richard Reti shattered in New York in 1924"

NEW YORK 1924

Lasker          16.0 - 4.0

Capablanca 14.4 - 5.5...
Reti              10.5 - 9.5

What I wouldn't give for such a shattering!

Lifetime records

Capablanca versus Reti   5 - 2

Lasker versus Reti   4.5-0.5

I think Hypermodernism was "an idea whose time had come".

Consider the steam engine. Round about 1700 EVERYBODY was inventing steam engines. Savery. Neucomen. Leupold. Boulton. Watt. Pickard. All of them made incremental advances, and the question of "who was REALLY the father of the steam engine" has no definite answer.

The case of Hypermodernism is similar. Paulsen lain down some of the fundamental underpinnings. Breyer has a decent claim. Nimzovich. Reti. Tartakower. Gruenfeld. The list goes on.

Lasker, you’re comparing world champions to reti. Of course he’d suck.

Optimissed good posts but you are going to have to improve at the art of not arguing with stupid people. edit: I am not referring to blueemu here. 

Reti scored 7 wins with his new opening.  He beat two world champions (Capablanca, Alekhine) and two more who played for the title (Janowski and Bogoljubow).  When has anyone else scored 7.5/10 with the same opening across ten games against a field of that strength?

Lifetime scores mean little in this case, Reti died quite young, and so spent comparatively little time at peak form.

Certainly many players contributed to the development of Nimzowitsch's theories, but Nimzowitsch made if coherent.  We still call it Euclidean geometry, but Euclid wasn't the only person whose material was in his Elements.

Putting the whole of a system of thought into a single coherent work is a rare thing, and has unparalleled power for instructional purposes.  Reti, Breyer, Paulsen, Grunfeld, Tartakower, Rubinstein, they all provided pieces to the hypermodern puzzle, but Nimzowitsch is the one who assembled those pieces into a whole picture.

But you forgot that you're not supposed to take the pawn in the Queen's Gambit.

Both Tarrasch's  and Nimzowitsch;s books are nearly a century old, and everything worthwhile in those books has been absorbed into common practice. The teachings of the Steinitz/Tarrasch school have stood the test time, and the the important contributions of the hypermoderns have become the common property of all strong players. The idea that there is some magical property in a book Nimsowitsch wrote mainly to try an attract a backer to finance a world championship is simply ridiculous, Many of the strongest players in the world have either never read "My System" or put it down without finishing it. And that doesn't seem to have hurt them

Absorbed, but not always completely or correctly.

Countries where My System is considered standard reading still produce the most GMs - Russia (#1), Germany (#2), and Ukraine (#3).  The USA is #4, and many of our GMs are from the former Soviet Union, and India is #5, where the hypdermodern style of analysis has long been preferred.

To suggest that players don't suffer without fully absorbing Nimzowitsch (or Tarrasch for that matter) flies in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary.

What a lot of pretentious twaddle. "Hypermodernism" is classical chess,  a nearly century-old approach. Modern players have absorbed the good parts of "My System" and discarded the rest a long, long time ago, 

what is considered hypermodern then. apparently every sicilian is and the grunfeld and kings indian is. the catalan is controversial and idk

There is nothing to discard.  Nimzowitsch only ran into trouble in his own games when he disregarded his own advice (unsound sacrifices, tempo-losing exchanges, etc.).  Petrosian played completely in keeping with My System, and at his peak form he was as strong as any player who has ever lived.

@Optimissed - Thanks for making my point.  You think taking the pawn is fine because you don't know hypermodern theory.  It's not OK, it's a waste of tempo, which for black (who starts the game a tempo behind) is often fatal.  Black can't hold on to the gambit pawn (the Queen's gambit is not a true gambit), and white gets to make a developing move when he recaptures.

The QGA is awful for black.  Whatever theory holds that it is OK is wrong.  Black is unambiguously weaker for having played dxc4.