Aron Nimzowitsch – författare

My System is at the top of a very short list of chess classics. Nimzowitsch's ideas have had a profound influence on modern chess thinking. Most chess masters will at some point have studied Nimzowitsch's work, and not to have read My System is by many regarded as a shocking gap in a chess player's education.The problem for an English-speaking audience has been that My System was written in German more than eighty years ago. The commonly-used contemporary translations have sounded dated for some time, and were always questionable: the translators frequently toned down many passages, fearing Nimzowitsch's biting wit would be too controversial.This edition uses a brand-new translation that recreates the author's original intentions. For the first time an English-speaking audience can appreciate the true nature of a famous chess book.Page 269: "It would serve no purpose to mention or even to hint at all the scorn and mockery which was directed at me; let it suffice to say that nobody has ever been mistreated like that in the whole history of chess. The reward for my new ideas consisted of abuse, or at best of systematic silence."

No book has exerted a greater impact on chess thought over the past 80 years. Variations may come and go, but Nimzowitsch was a seeker after eternal truths and the precepts outlined in this strategic manual have withstood the ravages of time. Breakthroughs in understanding often follow breakthroughs in verbal formulation - Nimzowitsch's skill at translating chess board operations into words was one of the secrets both of his personal success and of the longevity of his system.

"First restrain, then blockade, finally destroy!" was the war cry of the celebrated 1920s writer and World Chess Championship aspirant Aron Nimzowitsch. Subsequently eclipsed by his classic My System, this pioneering work (The Blockade) has now been rescued and published, with a new translation, for the very first time in dual-language format (English and German). The Editor, Philip Hughes, webmaster of the Uncrowned Kings website, has delved into chess history and provided extensive appendices in order to bring the reader a better picture of chess in the 1920s and particularly 1923-4. The chess philosophy developed by Aron Nimzowitsch, the Father of Modern Chess and the godfather of Hyper-modernism, clearly instructs the chess student on many important aspects of the game. The teachings of The Blockade reflect on the chessboard the military thinking of the day, trench warfare and strangulation, as exemplified in the recently concluded First World War. Nimzowitsch's insights remain relevant today and should be regarded as essential reading for the improving player.The introduction to this new edition of The Blockade is written by Grandmaster Ray Keene, author of a celebrated biography of Nimzowitsch and chess correspondent of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator and the International Herald Tribune.

My System is at the top of a very short list of chess classics. Nimzowitsch's ideas have had a profound influence on modern chess thinking. Most chess masters will at some point have studied Nimzowitsch's work, and not to have read My System is by many regarded as a shocking gap in a chess player's education.The problem for an English-speaking audience has been that My System was written in German more than eighty years ago. The commonly-used contemporary translations have sounded dated for some time, and were always questionable: the translators frequently toned down many passages, fearing Nimzowitsch's biting wit would be too controversial.This edition uses a brand-new translation that recreates the author's original intentions. For the first time an English-speaking audience can appreciate the true nature of a famous chess book.Page 269: "It would serve no purpose to mention or even to hint at all the scorn and mockery which was directed at me; let it suffice to say that nobody has ever been mistreated like that in the whole history of chess. The reward for my new ideas consisted of abuse, or at best of systematic silence."

In Chess Praxis Nimzowitsch elaborates on the strategies first adumbrated in My System with a series of deeply annotated games, demonstrating how his principles operated in practice. This was very much a manifesto for the Hypermodern School of Chess which also numbered Hardinge Simpole authors Richard Reti and S.G. Tartakower amongst its ranks.

Aron Nimzowitsch (1886 – 1935) was the most influential chess thinker of the 20th century. His books ‘My System’ (1925) and ‘Chess Praxis’ (1928) had tremendous impact and continue to be printed, sold and read to this day. Every chess player who is serious about improving his game, studies the lessons of this great Russian-born innovator. During several decades of research German chess historian Rudolf Reinhardt compiled, from an immense variety of sources, all the games Nimzowitsch played after 1928. They are presented with notes by Nimzowitsch himself and, in some cases, by his contemporaries. In addition to the games Reinhardt also collected the articles and essays that Nimzowitsch wrote during the last seven years of his life.Reinhardt’s collection offers a unique view of the chess world of the late 1920s and 1930s, its top tournaments and the state of theory. More importantly, it portrays Nimzowitsch the chess player and author in the last seven years of his short life. It is all there: the fights, the competitors and the polemics, all in the incomparable style of the master: pointed, elegant, precise and highly original.The book starts where Nimzowitsch’s second volume Chess Praxis ends. Richard Reinhardt, who died unexpectedly when writing the preface to his monumental collection, did not exaggerate when he called it the unauthorized sequel to the classics Nimzowitsch himself published during his lifetime.,

In My System, he expounded his theories of prophylaxis, blockade and much more, while providing ground-breaking insights in pawn structures. In the sequel Chess Praxis, Nimzowitsch demonstrated how he had successfully tested his theories in his games.Without reading Nimzowitsch your chess education cannot be complete. Perhaps not all of his convictions have stood the test of time, but even today, any chess student will deepen his understanding while enjoying the author’s insights and witticisms. Part of the charm of Nimzowitsch’s prose was his idiosyncratic use of the German language, which has been very carefully preserved in Robert Sherwood’s new translation. Added in this edition are the influential essays The Blockade and On the History of the Chess Revolution 1911-1914.