Nimzowitch defense
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Is the Nimzo defence 1.e4 Kc6 good?
Of course i meant 1.e4 Nc6
Nov 20, 2022
0
#3
Garry Kasparov and Raymond Keene said about it, "it has never been fully accepted as a dependable opening. Nevertheless it is sound and offers the maverick spirit a great deal of foreign territory to explore."
The reason it’s not too popular is because white has too much control over what kind of position they want (closed/semi-closed/open). Also, there are numerous, numerous transpositions for white that will bring them back into their comfort zone.
My cousin is a NM, and he loves to throw off his opponents with the nimzowitch defense. It’s his “surprise weapon”. Personally, I think surprise weapons should ideally force the opponent into a relatively narrow band of positions which you know better than them. But he’s the NM, and I’m 1200 on chess.com, so what do I know?
It's not great. Strong players will usually just play 2. Nf3 against you and then you have nothing better to do than play 2. ... e5, transposing into a normal king's pawn game. 2. ... f5 (the Colorado Gambit) is very dubious and will get you destroyed if your opponent knows how to play against it.
..............Or play 2)...d6 as recommened by GM Christian Bauer
BISHOP_e3 wrote:
..............Or play 2)...d6 as recommened by GM Christian Bauer
Still not good. White just plays 3. d4, taking the full centre and their development and plan are pretty straightforward. I would not recommend this line.
Nov 20, 2022
0
#9
Objectively its fine but the defense would be more popular if white almost always played 2.d4. Problem is that after 2.nf3 (and to a lesser degree 2.nc3), it is unclear how black should proceed without merely transposing back to king pawn territory with 2...e5. Black has many things he can try, but really persuasive tries are few. Best is almost certainly lines with 2..d6 where black plays for a "nimzo-pirc". Black is playing a pirc with the curious nc6 added in as a restriction and in exchange white cant play the dangerous lines involving f4 of f3, a very fair exchange.
darkunorthodox88 wrote:
Objectively its fine but the defense would be more popular if white almost always played 2.d4. Problem is that after 2.nf3 (and to a lesser degree 2.nc3), it is unclear how black should proceed without merely transposing back to king pawn territory with 2...e5. Black has many things he can try, but really persuasive tries are few. Best is almost certainly lines with 2..d6 where black plays for a "nimzo-pirc". Black is playing a pirc with the curious nc6 added in as a restriction and in exchange white cant play the dangerous lines involving f4 of f3, a very fair exchange.
Black could also go for some sort of Philidor setup like a Black Lion (both of which might involve playing Nc6 and d6), but in my opinion, that isn't really a Nimzowitsch Defence anymore and it's better to use a more optimal move order.