Kasparov and the Nimzo-Indian

For me personally the Nimzo-Indian is an ideal opening. It has the perfect balance between solidity and dynamism, with a wide array of different positions that allow Black to play for a win against 1.d4.

But this is just me. For some, the Nimzo-Indian may not be dynamic enough.

I think that one of these players was Kasparov. He was a very dynamic player and his favourite openings against 1.d4 were the King's Indian Defence and the Grunfeld Defence.

(I am not mentioning the Queen's Gambit Declined because that one was specifially designed for his World Championship matches with Karpov, even though he also used it on other occassions).

Up to his first match with Karpov the Tarrasch Defence was also prominent part of his repertoire, another dynamic choice. Kasparov had big successes with these openings but when he tried to play the Nimzo he was often unsuccessful.

In fact, Kasparov lost quite a few very important games in the Nimzo. Looking back, it seems it was just an opening that was unlucky for him. His first two tries at the Nimzo were important losses to Psakhis (in the USSR Championship in 1981 they would share a win in) and to Beliavsky (in the Candidates match in 1983).

Then for a long time Kasparov wasn't using the Nimzo-Indian and relied on the more dynamic King's Indian and Grunfeld. A shift towards more solidity came before the match with Kramnik. In 1999 in Wijk aan Zee Kasparov played one of the tournaments of his life. He started with 7.5 out of 8 and played excellent chess. In Round 9 he employed the Nimzo-Indian against Ivan Sokolov, forgot his preparation, then committed some mistakes and lost practically in a miniature.

In the match with Kramnik things generally went against Kasparov, but he also made mistakes in his choices and lacked self-belief in his preparation. After being shocked in the Grunfeld in Game 2 he decided to abandon it for the remainder of the match, thus wasting decades of work on that opening, a surprising lack of belief by the best-prepared player in the world.

He suffered a lot in the Queen's Gambit Accepted in Games 4 and 6, his back-up opening (and a strange choice, to be honest), and in a panicky decision Kasparov decided that he needed a third opening for the match and the choice fell on the Nimzo-Indian. It was in this opening that he lost Game 10 after misplaying a theoretical line that sealed the fate of the match. (The Nimzo gave him good winning chances in Games 8 and 12, but it was simply not meant to be.)

Sometimes it happens like this. A player works a lot on an opening, obtains great positions from it and yet the results are disappointing. It's difficult to explain the reasons behind such occurrences.

As Capablanca used to say, a player should play the openings that bring good results. Kasparov perhaps failed to follow that advice in some crucial moments of his career.

P.S. This week’s video is about the trendy way of playing one of Kasparov’s favourite openings - the King’s Indian. I doubt that in the starting position of the Classical Variation the move 7…h6 crossed Kasparov’s mind, but today it’s one of the most popular choices, instead of the Mar del Plata with 7…Nc6 or the other standard choices. In the video I explore the consequences of entering the Mar del Plata with the move Re1 and h6 inserted, with curious results! Check out the video here.