Table of Contents
I The Elements
Introduction 15
1 The centre and development
1 By development we mean the strategic march of the troops towards the border 17
2 A pawn move must not be considered in itself to be a developing move, but rather simply a move which helps development 17
3 A lead in development is an ideal 19
4 Exchanging followed by a gain of tempo 20
A possible intermezzo between exchanging and gaining a tempo 21
5 Liquidation followed by development or a bid for freedom 21
6 The centre and its urge to demobilise 24
6a Surrendering the centre 26
7 Pawn grabbing in the opening 28
7a Take any central pawn if it can be done without too great a danger! 30
2 The open file
1 Introduction ? General comments and definition 31
2 How open files occur (or are born) 32
3 The ideal (purpose) behind all operations on a file 33
4 Possible obstacles to operations down a file 34
5 "Restricted" advance on a file in order give it up in favour of another file, or the indirect exploitation of a file: The file as a springboard 37
6 The outpost 38
Schematic illustration of the open file 42
3 The 7th and 8th ranks
1 Introduction and general comments 43
2 Convergent and revolutionary attacks on the 7th rank Seizing a square (or pawn) with an acoustic echo (a simultaneous check) 43
3 The five special cases on the 7th rank 46
1 The 7th rank "absolute" and passed pawns 46
2 Double rooks ensure perpetual check 46
3 The drawing mechanism of $ + $ 47
4 Marauding on the 7th rank 47
5 Combining play on the 7th and 8th ranks (flanking from the corner) 47
Schematic illustration for the 7th and 8th ranks 52
Schematic illustration for the 5 special cases 52
Illustrative games for the first three chapters 53
4 The passed pawn
1 Getting our bearings 73
2 Blockading passed pawns 74
2a The first reason 75
2b The second reason 79
2c The third reason 80
3 The main and secondary functions of the blockading piece 80
The effect of the blockade 81
4 The struggle against the blockading piece 83
"Negotiations" or uprooting 84
5 Frontal attack by a king on an isolated pawn - an ideal! 86
6 Privileged passed pawns 89
7 When a passed pawn should advance 92
When can a passed pawn be considered ready to move? 92
Endgames and games illustrating passed pawns 95
Schematic representation for the passed pawn (question and answer session) 101
5 Exchanging
1 We exchange in order to occupy (or open) a line without loss of time 103
2 We destroy a defender by exchanging 103
3 We exchange in order not to lose time retreating 104
3a "He tries to sell his life as dearly as possible" 105
4 How and where exchanges usually take place 105
6 The elements of endgame strategy
Introduction and general comments: The typical disproportion 109
1 Centralisation 109
Shelters and bridge building 112
2 The aggressively posted rook as a typical endgame advantage 113
3 Welding together isolated troops and "General advance!" 116
4 The "materialisation" of the abstract concepts: file or rank 117
Schematic illustration of the "endgame" or "the 4 elements" 119
7 The pinned piece 125
1 Introduction and general remarks 125
2 The concept of the completely or partially pinned piece 126
The exchanging combination on the pinning square 128
3 The problem of unpinning 130
a) Challenging 131
b) Ignoring the threat or allowing our pawns to be broken up 133
c) The reserves rush up to unpin in a peaceful way 133
d) Tacking (manoeuvring) and keeping open the options a, b, c! 134
Games involving pins 135
Schematic representation to illustrate pinning 141
8 Discovered check
1 The degree of relationship between the "pin" and the "discovered check" is defined more closely: Where is the best place for the piece which is discovering the check? 143
2 The treadmill (windmill) 144
3 Double check 145
9 The pawn chain
1 General remarks and definitions: The base of the pawn chain The idea of two separate batdefields 149
The idea of building a chain 149
Towards the kingside 150
Towards the centre 150
2 Attacking the pawn chain 151
3 Attacking the base as a strategic necessity 153
4 Transferring the rules of blockading to the pawn chain 154
5 The concept of a surprise attack compared to that of positional warfare, as applied to chains: The attacker at the parting of the ways! 156
5a The positional struggle, or put simply the slow siege of the unprotected base 158
6 Transferring the attack 161
Schematic representation of pawn chains 164
Games to illustrate pawn chains 165
II Positional Play
1 Prophylaxis and the centre
1 The reciprocal links between the treatment of the elements on one hand and positional play on the other 177
2 Offences against sound positional play, which should be weeded out in every case as a sine qua non to the study of positional play 177
3 My novel conception of positional play as such 179
4 Next to prophylaxis, the idea of the "general mobility" of the pawn mass constitutes one of the main pillars of my teachings on positional play 183
5 The centre 184
6 What should be the leitmotiv behind true strategy 189
7 Giving up the centre 191
The "surrender of the centre" - a prejudice 192
Roads to the mastering of positional play (schematic representation of chapter 1) 200
2 Doubled pawns and restraint 201
1 The affinity between "doubled pawns" and "restraint" 201
1a The only true strength of doubled pawns 203
2 A review of the best-known doubled pawn structures 203
The doubled pawn complex in diagram 391 as an instrument of attack 209
3 Restraint: "Mysterious rook moves" 211
4 Clarification of the nucleus of a manoeuvre designed to restrain a pawn majority 216
5 The different forms of restraint are more clearly explained 216
a) The mobile central pawn 217
b) The struggle against a qualitative majority 218
c) Restraining doubled pawn complexes 219
d) My own special variation and its restraining tendencies 220
3 The isolated queen's pawn and its descendants
a) The isolated queens pawn 229
1 The dynamic strength of the d4-pawn 230
2 The isolani as an endgame weakness 230
3 The isolani as an instrument of attack in the middlegame 231
4 Which cases are favourable to White and which to Black? 232
5 A few more words about the creation of a related weakness among White's queenside pawns 232
b) The "isolated pawn pair" 233
c) Hanging pawns 234
From the "isolani" to "hanging pawns" 235
d) The bishops 238
1 Horrwitz bishops 239
2 A pawn mass directed by bishops 240
3 Cramping the knights while at the same time fighting against a pawn majority 241
4 The two bishops in the endgame 242
4 Overprotection and weak pawns
How to systematically overprotect your own strong points and how to try to get rid of weak pawns or squares 247
a) Overprotection of the central squares 249
b) Overprotection of the centre as a protective measure for your own kingside 251
How to get rid of weak pawns 252
5 Manoeuvring
1 What are the logical elements on which manoeuvring against a weakness is based?: The concept of the "pivot", around which manoeuvring takes place 255
2 The terrain: The rule for manoeuvring: Changing place 255
a) A pawn weakness, which is attacked in turn from the (7th) rank and from the file 256
b) Two pawn weaknesses, in this case c3 and h3 256
c) The king as a weakness 257
3 Combining play on both wings, when for the moment the weaknesses either do not exist or are hidden 258
4 Manoeuvring when circumstances become difficult (your own centre is in need of protection) 260
Postscript: The history of the revolution in chess from 1911-1914
1 The general situation before 1911 269
Does "The modern game of chess" by Dr Tarrasch really correspond to the modern conception of the game? 270
2 The revolutionary ideas 276
3 Revolutionary theory put into revolutionary praxis 277
4 Other historical battles 279
5 Extension and development of the revolution in chess in the years 1914 to 1926 282
The chess career of Aron Nimzowitsch 285
Index of players 300
My System in the computer age (or footnotes) 303
Nimzowitsch for the 21st Century 313
