You Gotta Love Yaz

I am pleased as punch that our very own Yasser Seirawan isn't backing off from his unpopular criticism of dear old Aron Nimzowitsch. But this attitude is a complete about-face on my part. At first I thought, "Who writes an Open Letter whose purport is to criticize some long-dead chess teacher?" Well here's one possible answer: his living replacement!

   Yasser has been teaching chess for many decades now. His erstwhile magazine Inside Chess was full of instructional material, including reviews of books for players of most levels. Now he teaches via live commentary. Like Nimzowitsch, Yasser's instruction is both affordable and universal. Like Nimzowitsch, world-class chess instruction appears to be what Yasser does.

   Yesterday (during his round 3 Altibox commentary) Yasser challenged anyone to provide even a single example of Nimzowitsch's concept of overprotection from a modern game of chess. I immediately thought of  the famous encounter Karpov-Seirawan, Tilberg, 1983, wherein Karpov typically overprotected e5 and then broke through on that file to win a beautiful game. But Yasser is right, Nimzowitsch overlauded his pet concept of overprotection. And Nimzowitsch did have many foibles; was overwrought; never forgave Tarrasch; and so on. But he was a a great teacher. He wholly identified with his role as chess master and chess didact and many of us will always be grateful to him for his instruction. For many of us he was a guiding light.

   In the present computer age, however, the first thing one must do after learning chess principles is to forget them. Nimzowitsch's ideas have been superseded. But whose ideas aren't superseded after centuries? Buddha's, perhaps?

   The only indisputably greater chess thinkers (general theoreticians) in the history of the game (with the possible exception of Philidor and very few others) were Morphy and Steinitz (although Morphy's revolutionary chess-theoretic ideas were shown, not stated). Nimzowitsch was so far ahead of his time that a century later his manner of playing against the Queen Pawn's Opening is still absolutely valid. Some of his nuances (e.g. in the Queen's Indian) are mainline theory today! Anyone who examines Nimzowitsch's opening ideas in detail (cf. Rudolf Reinhardt's recent book on Nimzowitsch) will see that it is rare that they are not decades ahead of their time. Nimzowitsch was one of the world's greatest theoreticians, players, and teachers.

   But since Yasser is not charging $100/hour to teach modern chess, is frequently available online, and explains everything about the game to us from a world-class point of view, I want to speak highly of his frank views on our old, teacher, Nimzowitsch. Yasser is our living teacher, and is within his rights! Nimzowitsch was troubled by what he called pessimism and dejection, and although we forgive him his self-involvement, it is hardly surprising that someone may be rubbed the wrong way by all that. We forgive the same way the fictional inhabitants of Zion forgave Morpheus, who was both fanatical and mistaken. So what! You gotta love him.