A Chess Parody-An Ingenious Example of My System

To the incredulous, the above game was published in the February,

1928 issue of the Wiener Schachzeitung under the editorship of Hans

Kmoch.

Kmoch admired and esteemed Nimzovitch as a great player and a

profound and original thinker. Yet he could not help poking sly fun at

Nimzovitch’s often pompous and bombastic manner. Luckily this

rollicking parody is so good-natured, with a few grains of sense artfully

concealed in a farrago of nonsense, that Nimzovitch expressed himself

as vastly amused by it. – Ed. [I.A. Horowitz]

A strange commentary on the parody was written by R.E. Fauber on page 209 of Impact of Genius (Seattle, 1992):

‘My System is a peach of a book, ripe both for adulation and parody. When Hans Kmoch’s parody of Nimzovich was reprinted in Chess Review in 1951, readers took the nonsense as serious instruction. Reading that “the move is strong because it is weak!” after the moves 1 e4 e6 2 h4!! caused not a ripple. Some agreed with another note in which “Herr Sistemsson” wrote, “The fact is that I’m a marvelous player, even if the whole chess world bursts with envy”.

One reader wrote, “Sold one copy [of My System], Nimzovich’s system seems to me really good.” Another reader diffidently wrote, “I hope I don’t offend anyone. But I think Aaron [sic] Nimzovich went wrong by 23 Q-R7 ...” and demonstrated that “Sistemsson’s fictitious opponent overlooked a mate in six”.

Even in jest it was Nimzovich’s fate to be misunderstood. The public applauded his teachings only after they had been carefully distorted ...’

 

 

Feel Free To Share Your Feelings On This Game The First Time You Encountered It

great stuff

A hilarious imitation of Nimzo's rather pompous manner.

A good article!  But I had already written this one myself a few months back...

(just kidding)

ya that was a great composition by hans kmoch.the annotations are very much nimzowitsch like.this was composed by him few days after his famous loss to nimzowitsch

That is really funny, I had never seen that before.

Fantastic.

wow great game, isnt that his every game almost?

<Urk> Great that you revived this thread - more young readers should be aware of this great jewel of humor, by IM Hans Kmoch - the author of "Pawn Power in Chess".

The game AND the annotations (including the name of the opponent!) are based on a real annotated game by Nimzowitsch - indeed, that game against Hakansson that I mentioned to you a while ago on the other thread.

<Urk> - true, and especially if you know  the Hakansson game - then the similarity is really striking!

What

So glad someone posted this! Truly hilarious, I love it

Kmoch really covers all the Nimzo traits. I especially love the lengthy parenthesis notes, totally nailed it