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Aron Nimzowitsch vs Frank Marshall
Karlsbad (1907), Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) AUH, rd 16, Sep-10
Zukertort Opening: Old Indian Attack (A06)  ·  0-1

ANALYSIS [x]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Aug-10-04  Shah Mat: Marshall shows why hes called an attacking genius.
Aug-10-04  suenteus po 147: <Shah Mat> No kidding! I've never seen a player like Nimzowitsch taken so totally apart in a game.
Aug-10-04  admiralnemo: more like this is one of the worst retis i've ever seen a grandmaster play.
Feb-15-05  PinkPanther: LOL. Exactly.
Feb-15-05  iron maiden: For a guy who was given so much trouble by positional players, Marshall did win some pretty outstanding games against Nimzo.
Feb-16-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  An Englishman: Good Evening: White would have a good reversed Pirc with an extra tempo, except he used that extra tempo on Nbd2.
Oct-03-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  tpstar: I try to teach my students not to approach every game aiming for cheap tactics like Bc4 & Nf3-Ng5-Nxf7 or Bf4 & Nc3-Nb5-Nxc7 and then they find reference games like this one where it works like a charm.

Note 14. Nxf5? Nxc2+ 15. Kf1 Rd1#.

Despite the shaky start, White is only down a Pawn until 26. Nc5?? missing the Skewer 26 ... Bg5+ & 27 ... Bxd2 and White is lost.

Oct-03-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: Here is a very similar game with colors reversed:

[Event "Chessgames.com Friendly Mini"]
[Site "http://gameknot.com/"]
[Date "06-Dec-05"]
[Round "-"]
[White "keypusher"]
[Black "percyblakeney"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "1812"]
[BlackElo "1869"]
[TimeControl "5d+2d, 7d max"]

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. Re1 Nb-d7 8. e5 dxe5 9. dxe5 Ng4 10. e6 fxe6 11. Bc4 Nd-e5 12. Qxd8 Rxd8 13. Nxe5 Bxe5 14. h3 Bxc3 15. bxc3 Nf6 16. Bg5 Kf7 17. Ra-d1 Rxd1 18. Rxd1 Ne4 19. Bh6 b5 20. Bf1 Nxc3 21. Rd8 Bb7 22. Rd7 Ba6 23. Rd3 Nd5 24. g3 Bb7 25. h4 e5 26. c4 Nf6 27. Rb3 a6 28. a4 Rb8 29. axb5 cxb5 30. cxb5 Bd5 31. Rb1 axb5 32. Rxb5 1/2-1/2

Alas, I am no Marshall, and Percy shows a cooler head than Nimzo.

Oct-03-07  nolanryan: Nimzowitsch has the attention span of an avocado.
Dec-27-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Phony Benoni: At first thought, one might excuse this as another failed experiment by the youthful Nimzowitsch against a Marshall then at the top of his powers.

That sounds good. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain how Nimzowitsch was able to wind up tied for fourth in the tournament with Schlechter while Marshall finished buried in 11th place with an even score.

Yes, Nimzo played some weird stuff at Carlsbad. Sometimes it blew up in his face. But more often than not the weirdness wound up working.

Jun-30-08  RookFile: Nimzo tries his high fallutin' positional nonsense, and Marshall slaps him upside the head. A real clash of styles.
Jun-30-08  apexin: 5.e4 would have been better. I play king's indian attack setup sometimes and it seem that if black plays ...e4 early it gives him a promising position.
Feb-26-11
Premium Chessgames Member
  Phony Benoni: A little insight into the game from Leopold Hoffer, published in the <American Chess Bulletin>, 1907, p. 221. The comment is to <26.Nc5>, the final blunder:

<"Arriving nearly half an hour late, Niemzowitsch quietly perused a Russian paper before making his move. The scant courtesy shown to his opponent was not intentional, but only eagerness to see the home news, the paper having been placed at his board by an unknown friend. He was, however, duly punished by losing the game, Tschigorin pointing out afterward that he could have drawn it by the best play.">

Tschigorin's analysis starts in the position after <15...Nxc2+>:


click for larger view

<16.Kd1 Nge3+ 17.Bxe3 Nxe3+ 18.Kd2 Nxg2 19.Nc3 Bb4 20.Rh2 Be4 21.e3 c5 22.Ke2 Bxc3 23.bxc3 cxd4 24.cxd4> followed by Rg1, etc.

Jan-26-15  jerseybob: apexin: Yes, exactly right about 5.e4. Maybe Nimzo forgot about the black knight on c6 and thought he had 6.Nd4 available.
Jan-26-15  JimNorCal: Quite a fun and anti-theoretical game. Positional truisms like development are thrown out the window.

American popular chess writer Reinfeld pointed out that Nimzo had an abysmal lifetime score against Marshall. Reinfeld guessed that Marshall's casual and easy-going American manners were annoying to Nimzovitch.

Whatever the reason, the outcomes of their games did not match the players' expected results.

Jan-26-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  ray keene: Actually Nimzowitsch had a plus score v Marshall !
Jan-26-15  jerseybob: ray keene: That's right(according to this database anyway)and I'd be disappointed if the world's number-one Nimzovitchean didn't point it out!
Jan-26-15  JimNorCal: A pleasure to hear from GM Keene on this subject. His book on Nimzowitsch is truly a labor of love.

For the record, I dug out the Reinfeld book to check whether my memory was playing tricks. Here is a snip of the text from "Nimzovich the Hypermodern" pg 20.

"Remarkably enough, Marshall achieved an excellent lifetime score in his games against Nimzovich. One may reasonably conjecture that Marshall's easygoing ways irritated Nimzovich and thus prevented him from doing his best."

Mr Reinfeld is no longer able to defend his statement, of course. The simplest explanation is that he is wrong. But let me ask one further question on his behalf. The CG database gives 6 Nimzo wins versus 5 for Marshall, with 9 draws. Clearly this is a victory for Nimzovitch. However, this narrow margin might also be considered an "excellent lifetime score" depending on the relative strengths of the two players. What would the expected outcome of the games between these two players be? Note that about 2/3s of their games occurred when Nimzovitch was in his prime and Marshall was "over the hill".

Jan-26-15  JimNorCal: And, clearly, my memory DID play tricks, "abysmal" was not correct at all.
Jul-23-15  RookFile: There may be other games that aren't in the database.
Jan-09-18  bkpov: Must be a fixed match!
Aug-12-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  plang: Hypermodern chess was in its infancy at the time of this game and the players were on their own very quickly. Afew months earlier at Ostend Billecard had played 3..c5 against Mieses and had gone on to win; 3..Nc6 was new. Was allowing 5..e4 just carelessness?

<Tschigorin's analysis starts in the position after <15...Nxc2+>: <16.Kd1 Nge3+ 17.Bxe3 Nxe3+ 18.Kd2 Nxg2 19.Nc3 Bb4 20.Rh2 Be4 21.e3 c5 22.Ke2 Bxc3 23.bxc3 cxd4 24.cxd4> followed by Rg1, etc.>

It has since been shown by Kavalek and Benko that Chigorin's analysis can be improved with 21..Rd8 22 Rg1..c5 23 Ke2..Bc6 24 a3..Nxe3! 25 axb..Re8! 26 Kd3..cxb with advantage to Black.

The blunder shortened a very nice effort by Marshall but he would have likely won the pawn-up endgame in any event.

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