<The Frog as we Know him Today>,

and to Charles DeGaulle's

<Nous Sommes les grenouilles libre!>

Read both for a dialectical approach to the <"Frog as such">

But don't forget <Agincourt>. We won that one.

Plus we saved the <Frog's> ass on D-Day. I know cuz I saw it on a movie.

Waking up (cholke, gurgle, etc.)

I love Nimzo too, did you see some of the games here at CG where he annotates his own moves? He's unbelievably arrogant, almost beyond the pale. I never laughed so hard in my life. Was he like the "Fischer" of his era?

His games are pretty snazzy alright, I'll say that. In the game I'm referring to he sacrifices 15 pieces or so on the way to a forced mate that took 24 moves, apparently, or so it seems from the story told in the annotations.

<Eyal>! Which game am I thinking of?

(the girl who couldn't remember the "opera box" game and thought it was one of Fischer's cuz all I remembered was <Bc4> in Philidor and that he wrote the notes).

You seem to be a specialist with the Black Pieces. Is this in fact true?

In a word, no. In terms of playing strength, he was 3rd best in the world around 1925-30, but he never got a shot at the title. He was certainly better than Bogolyubov, who played two title matches with Alekhine.

Nimzo could beat Alekhine -- many great games between the two, with Alekhine ahead by a nose -- but he never once managed to beat Capablanca. Capa's clarity and Nimzo's nerves conspired to blow his subtle maneuverings out of the water.

I refuse to accept, btw, that these guys were any weaker than today's elite GMs. Less knowledge in a few areas, sure -- like the best way to play a Dragon or a King's Indian -- but every bit as powerful when it came to thinking up plans and implementing them.

As for his writing, I still don't think anyone has produced a chess book as deep as My System. I've had it for nearly 30 years, and I still find new angles in it. Or just suddenly realize that I never properly understood what he meant before.

He is also, of course, hilarious. A giant ego, a way with words in several languages, immortal phrases like "lust to expand" and "restrain, blockade, destroy" ... what's not to love about the guy?

You're familiar, I take it, with the story of Nimzo 'resigning' a game by leaping to his feet with an anguished shriek of "Why must I lose to this idiot?"

Or his complaint to a tournament director that his opponent, Vidmar, brandishing an unlit cigar, was "threatening to smoke" -- and the threat is more dangerous than the execution?

A quote from the Man:
"This is a sensation ('shock') to which I am inclined to ascribe an enormous significance from a pedagogical point of view. Try as you will to preach him centralisation, the combinative player will keep making thrusts on the flank; while the 'sensation method' ... can influence his style in a decisive manner."

Electroshock therapy for candidate masters, and special high voltage treatment for patzers. Nothing like it. Electrically eclectic.

Was it Volta who made frogs' legs twitch with an electric current? Same principle.

On one of the very few occasions when I played this kind of stuff in a tournament game (it was a Two Knights, Fried Liver, actually), my 'losing move' was castling, instead of blowing the centre apart.

My instincts, honed by closed openings, told me it was usually a good idea to castle before trying to launch a mating attack. In this case, it wasn't: it just gave the other guy a tempo to escape with his king.

I suspect it's not really possible to flip from one style to the other. Or am I being inflexible?

I'm not French, of course, and I don't speak particularly well ... my understanding of French is limited to three years in High School and sadly, "J'ai deja oublie beaucoup de mes Francais" -- although I think I retained enough to understand your post. If I'm not mistaken, it was about the effects of inflation on the cost of yellow turnips in mid-19th century Switzerland. Between your Hebrew and my French we can have fascinating intellectual conversations.

(Non, il etait facile donc meme je le comprenais... et je l'apprecie :-)

I remember reading about a GM who quipped that he preferred to play with the Black pieces because then he wouldn't have to think as much; most of his moves would be forced!

I always prefer playing as White, of course, but I think I have a better intuitive feel for the game with Black because I have played the French Defense vs 1.e4 and the Nimzo-Indian Defense (or the sister openings Bogo-Indian and Queen's Indian) vs 1.d4 ever since I was a young boy. My openings with White, by contrast, have varied quite a bit over the years; I wasn't fully comfortable with anything and only now do I feel like I'm beginning to get a grasp of the opening systems for White that best suit my style.

A) You can make soldiers out of a slice of bread.>

Anyone know the Italian equivalent of this brilliant joke!

I tend to agree, although there are some players who are capable of much more versatility in their play than others.

Since Nimzo has been evoked, here’s his most famous game with some of his own comments.

White: Sämisch
Black: Nimzowitsch
Copenhagen 1923

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 Be7 6.Nc3 0-0 7.0-0 d5 8.Ne5 c6 9.cxd5 cxd5 10.Bf4 a6 11.Rc1 b5 12.Qb3 Nc6

The ghost! With noiseless steps he presses on towards c4.

13.Nxc6

Sämisch sacrifices two tempi (exchange of the tempo-eating Knight at e5 for the Nc6 which is almost undeveloped) merely to be rid of the ghost.

13…Bxc6 14.h3 Qd7 15.Kh2 Nh5

I could have supplied him with yet a second ghost by …Qb7, and Nf6-d7-b6-c4, but I wished to turn my attention to the Kingside.

16.Bd2 f5!
17.Qd1 b4 18.Nb1 Bb5 19.Rg1 Bd6 20.e4 fxe4!

This sacrifice, which has a quite surprising effect, is based upon the following sober calculation: two pawns and the 7th rank and an enemy Queen’s wing which cannot be disentangled – all this for only one piece!

21.Qxh5 Rxf2
22.Qg5 Raf8
23.Kh1 R8f5
24.Qe3 Bd3
25.Rce1 h6!!
0-1

A brilliant move which announces Zugzwang. White has not a move left. If, eg, Kh2 or g4, then …Rf3.[26.g4 R5f3 27.Bxf3 Rh2#] Black can now make waiting moves with his King, and White must, willy-nilly, eventually throw himself upon the sword. So 26. Resigns.

[notes by Nimzowitsch]

Beautiful. Who conjures up ghosts these days? Who throws themselves upon swords willy-nilly, for that matter. Exquisite.

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me" (General George S. Patton)

"I just love the French. They taste like chicken!" (Hannibal Lecter)

Only just noticed -- that's not your normal wake-up choke sound, there's an extra liquid in it. Hope you're still breathing.

Do you require an Unheimlich Maneuver?

Must have read too much ETA Hoffmann or something.

Do you think Hoffmann labored under the burden of being named "Estimated Time of Arrival" by his parents?

Seems a bit much...

From the "feminist" section:

How many men does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

One, but the room has to revolve around him.

Hahahahaah

How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

One, and it isn't funny!

HAHAHAHAHAAH

As for Ivanchuk, I quite agree about his versatility. And yet, more than anyone else in the current elite crop, I find I often understand what he's up to.

There was a live game recently (I think it was vs Carlsen, but I could be wrong) where Chucky played Nb3 -- everyone was looking at ideas like Na5 and Nc5 to see if they could work. But to me it just seemed obvious he was going to play Nb3-c1-d3, with a lock on the centre.

It's not that he's easy to follow -- but with some players you can sometimes get a sense of being on the same wavelength. Despite his loyalty to the French, I never felt that with Uhlmann.

I agree, too, about playing lots of openings (even if I'm a bad example myself with my e4-avoidance syndrome). Ideally I think a player should experiment with everything possible, at least in blitz etc -- I can still recall odd tricks in Alekhine's Defense and the Pirc. And it's a great way to find out what suits you best, rather than just following fashion.

It's a witty <parody> of a Nimzowitsch game from Kmoch with mock Nimzowitsch notes. Nimzowitsch was highly amused by this. As with all good parodies the spirit of the original does shine through, in distorted fashion of course. Concealed in the humor are clear indications both of Nimzowitsch's egocentricity and of the paradoxes that lie beneth his system. For me it's the best ever chess parody.

Fritz <Saemisch>, btw, was a real bohemian. One day he bought a typewriter, because we had the idea of writing a chessbook. The next day he re-sold it. Playing chess, he always was in timetrouble. Once he was thinking more than a hour about his answer after e4 e5 Nf3 Nf6 Bb5. I believe he was calculating 3... a5, 3... Nd8 and 3... g5 or how to transpose into a Sicilian game. The <"Why must I lose to this idiot?"> game is Nimzowitsch' only lost against Saemisch.Samisch vs Nimzowitsch, 1925

Nimzowitsch often blew the trumpet when annotating his own games. <"one of my best games of the recent years"> was a frequently recurring expression by which Nimzowitsch the annotator gave ample recognition to Nimzowitsch the grandmaster and thus encouraged the latter almost to the same degree that he offended most chess enthusiasts.

"Someday he will know everything, and still be as impotent as before. His youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible now -- the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are more than enough traitors out on the line. Prophets traditionally don't last long -- they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back. But on Byron has been visited an even better fate. He is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth and powerless to change anything. No longer will he seek to get off the wheel. His anger and frustration will grow without limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it..."

N+1 (where N is a positive whole number) — one to hold(/insert etc.) the lightbulb and N to behave in a fashion generally associated with a negative stereotype of that group.

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

Fish.

Once, he lost on time having played just twelve moves. At Linnkoping in 1969, he scored 0/13 -- all thirteen games were lost on time.

LOL

Reminds me of the worst thing you can possibly hear from your lover: