Learning The Nimzo-Indian Defense

Learning The Nimzo-Indian Defense

So you want to learn how to play the Nimzo-Indian Defense.  Perhaps you might try a few different things…

• You could try posting a forum topic somewhere on chess.com asking for opinions on the Nimzo-Indian Defense. You would probably get a rough assortment of advice from lots of different people, eventually a flame war would break out, and, well, that would be the end of that.
• You could read, study, and follow a book on the Nimzo-Indian, but once you're eventually out of book, now what?
• You could watch grandmaster videos and DVD’s on the Nimzo-Indian, but if you had any questions, you can’t just ask the GM and expect him to answer all your questions.  (Assuming, of course, you can even contact him!)
• You could play a whole lot of individual games in the Nimzo-Indian and do the best you can, but you could also be making the same mistakes over and over again without ever realizing it.
• You could hire a private coach to answer all your questions, but, after a while, that could get quite expensive.
• Or you could just hang out with people who know about the Nimzo-Indian.  Then you could all compare notes and whatever bits of knowledge you've all gleaned...maybe from the methods listed above.  But even that discussion would probably not last very long nor would it answer questions that are likely to come up in the future.  

The solution?  Team Vote Chess!  It's convenient, it’s informative, it's cheap and, most importantly, it works.  Each team Vote Chess game is a classroom and our opponents are the teachers.  They provide us with the questions and together we strive to find the answers.  Two minds are greater than one, but several minds are greater than just two.  We are all classmates.  We are not competing with each other.  We’re cooperating with each other.  In many cases voting is not much more than a formality, except when there is more than one good idea and we can't agree which way to go.  Then it's an actual election and the votes decide.  However, voting is not nearly as important as the actual discussion, where the real learning is done.

   The Nimzo-Indian Ninjas (and other groups dedicated to specific openings) exists for the sole purpose of learning, studying, and teaching the Nimzo-Indian Defense.  We are not playing team Vote Chess to prove the Nimzo-Indian Ninjas are the best team (although we might be).  We are not doing this to prove the Nimzo-Indian Defense is the best opening (although it might be).  We play team Vote Chess because it provides us with the opportunity to learn, study, and teach each other the Nimzo-Indian Defense. 

  So please join the class, participate, contribute, and learn.

 Our dojo welcomes all those interested in exploring the Light and Dark sides of the Nimzo-Indian Defense (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4).

In 2016, https://www.chessable.com/ offers free Nimzo-Indian Defense training. I think I'm doing pretty well with it, and happily recommend it to anyone here at Chess.com.