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I recently went to Washington Square Park for a little evening entertainment and, instead of having fun, I lost in miserable fashion. The guy I was playing always played the Nimzowitsch opening as black, and despite squeezing a good position in one game, and a getting a knight from a blunder in another, I lost all the games. Adding insult to injury, he behaved exactly how you would expect someone from Washington Square to act: arrogant, obnoxious, and constantly making claims to seeing one step further than me. So in a, perhaps naive, attempt to regain my dignity I've planned to spend a month studying up on the opening, and hopefully someone out there can help me along![Laughing]( "Laughing")
This is the general pattern the games took:
Any help, including authorities on this opening, or valuable books, would be an immense help. Since I'll be studying it for the month, I will also be posting more information as it comes to me. Perhaps we call all learn a bit about this unorthodox killer.
One alternate continuation I've found is:
Using opening dBases can be tricky. Always take them a few moves past your given point to get a true perspective. Your transposition to the Scotch for instance. The shredder dbase gives 3. Nf3 a 40% score but if you continue you find that little used lines and other transpositions are skewing the results. SO if you like the Scotch 3. Nf3 is a viable alternative. It isn't going to score as well percentage wise as punishing a Nimzowitsch with 3. dxe5 or d5. Realize that Black gets a cramped position and study how to exploit one. Realize, also, that Black has some tactical shots and learn to anticipate them. Your problem seems less to do with the opening and more to do with what to do after it. Its also possible your opponents tactics, incessant chattering, attitude, etc are affecting your play.
You play it with c4 so the opening actually tranposes to a black knight's tango (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 Nc6!?). The most testing lines in those involve an early h4, so that's what I'd suggest here: 4. h4!?
If he plays Ng6 you can just chase it away again with h5, grabbing some space. In case he answers with h5 the plan is to play Bg5 as soon as he plays his other knight to f6, and then try to gang up on the h5-pawn with moves as Ne2-g3 and Be2.
If this doesn't suit you, you can also try a set-up with g3 and Bg2, blunting his g6-knight.
Like CarlMI, I'd also go for a scotch game instead of 3 .d5 though. And maybe even play 2. Nf3 instead of 2. d4 (remember that 2. d4 is the move that nimzowitsch players want to see. Nf3 doesn't give them a center to destroy yet)
What was the guy's name? I used to play a dude in Wash Sq. who'd always play that opening.
BTW, dex, you should come to this! (they resceduled it to Sunday, June 21st)![Smile]( "Smile")
I don't understand the point of playing ...Nc6 then ...e5 when it can be played right away, so it's just played to confuse people. Instead of d5 I think dxe5 is safer and gives white a pretty solid edge after Nf3 (or f4) since you have a pawn in the center and unlike something like the scotch game, black has no compensation for this plus his knight has to move a few times. I don't think the position after d5 is so bad for black because he can easily counterattack with ...f5. or in your cases just pawn storm you the same way you do.
CarlMi: Thanks for the the suggestions. I'm going to work towards finding the tactical shots first, they should be easy to find in the game database, then hopefully find a source for the positional plans for both sides. His chatter definitely bothered me, but he new his game better than I did as well.
Alphastar18: Thanks, so much, I'm really going to put some time and thought into the black knights tango. Thanks for the tactical and positional options... it's really what I'm looking for. The plan for transposition to games other than fixed centers is also a great plan, take him out of the book, or at least away from what he was expecting! I'll post what I find on the knights tango here, so maybe the transpositions will help your game too ;>)