"Don't try to remember as many variations as you can! A fine sense of position should set you free from the slavery of variations. So, do your best to develop your sense of position."

<Petrosianic: "to a lesser degree the English opening". An interesting phrase. So the English is hypermodern... but it's a LESSER hypermodern opening than some... > This is actually pretty accurate. The English initially attempts to control the center from the flanks (c pawn, Nc3, Nf3, etc.) but almost invariably white plays a relatively early d4 which is rather against hypermodern principles.

<Old Indian Defense> I tend to agree.. The Old Indian (which I tend to prefer over the Kings Indian despite my Hypermodern bent) aims to play and hold an e5 pawn, not especially hypermodern.

<Only Euwe, Capablanca and, <traditionally, Nimzowitsch> were missing for some reasons.>

Is there any statement or quote by Nimzowitsch, where he explained his absence ? Maybe it has something to do with FIDE ?

Edward Winter: <Enevoldsen died in 1980, and in his will he expressed a wish to be buried alongside Nimzowitsch. The Danish Chess Union, the owner of the plot, acceded.>

Per Skjoldager (Fredericia, Denmark: <Enevoldsen’s obituary by Poul Hage in Skakbladet, July 1980, pages 99-102 does not mention the matter, but I have checked the facts with Steen Juul Mortensen, who was the President of the Danish Chess Union in 1980. He confirms that Enevoldsen wanted to be buried alongside Nimzowitsch. His family made a contribution to the fund.

Nimzowitsch, for his part, had no family in Denmark when he died, in 1935. A number of chess friends created a fund to care for his grave, and the fund still exists today, administered by the Danish Chess Union.>

" An important rule for the beginner is the following: if it were possible to develop the pieces without the aid of pawn moves, the pawnless advance would be the correct one, for, as suggested, the pawn is not a fighting unit until in the sense that his crossing of the frontier is to be feared by the enemy, since obviously the attacking force of the pawns is small compared with that of the pieces. "

-- Nimzowitsch

I'd call it a helpful advise, not a rule.

Hans Bouwmeester: "Nimzovich?"

Max Euwe: <With him I have played many a time. He was a bit unpleasant, possibly paranoic. At meal times he constantly moaned that he was the last to be served.>

Read in full (highly recommended): http://blog.chess.com/batgirl/insid...

The players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter."

-- Wilhelm Steinitz

There, in the quote, is a part of an answer to why Tarrasch's books have had more influence. Usually, an originator of a new idea (not only in Chess) has to fight a ton of obstacles, and finds few followers. Later, once an idea has been tested, approved of, accepted and spread around, the followers/"populizers" find it much easier to sell, and benefit from, the teacher's work.

1870s and 1880s would have been a different story entirely. I believe that Morphy would have had one hell of a hard time, facing an opponent the like of which he had never had before.

A set match during that period could have gone either way by a very close margin. There would have been no such thing as "slapping around". One way or the other.

In a way this reminds of the Fischer-Karpov situation in the mid-1970s.

Regardless of any conceivable speculation, we will never know.