Sunday 5 October 2014

Simple chess

I fear I have become obsessed with playing 'perfect' chess. Even when I win I still worry that this due to my opponents mistakes, rather than because of my own good moves. The two main causes of this are (a) the advent of computer analysis, where every move is judged in terms of centi-pawns and (b) studying classic games where the winning plan seems to run for 30 moves and is executed flawlessly.
Of course reason (a) tends to strike a blow not to just my games, but a lot of games covered by reason (b). However we tend to me more forgiving of the mistakes of other, than of our own (at least privately).
Nonetheless I've decided to feature a 'classic' game, where Aaron Nimzowitsch seems to win without too much effort. Reinfeld and Chernev labelled it a 'positional masterpiece', but Fritz just thinks Black blundered on move 7. But you can only play the position your opponent gives you, and it is still quite instructive to see Nimzowitsh take control of the position all the way to the end of the game.


Nimzowitsch,Aaron - Mieses,Jacques [A84]
Baden-Baden Baden-Baden (13), 02.05.1925



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