games and took place in 1914, thirteen years before Alekhine became world champion. Nimzowitsch never beat Capablanca (+0−5=6), but fared better against Alekhine (+3−9=9). He even beat Alekhine with the black pieces, in their short 1914 match at St. Petersburg. One of Nimzowitsch's most famous games is his celebrated immortal zugzwang game against Sämisch at Copenhagen 1923. Another game on this theme is his win over Paul Johner at Dresden 1926. When in form, Nimzowitsch was very dangerous with the black pieces, scoring many fine wins over top players. Legacy Nimzowitsch is considered one of the most important players and writers in chess history. His works influenced numerous other players, including Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar, Richard Réti, Akiba Rubinstein, Mikhail Botvinnik, Bent Larsen, Viktor Korchnoi and Tigran Petrosian, and his influence is still felt today. He wrote three books on chess strategy: Mein System (My System), 1925; Die Praxis meines Systems (The Practice of My System), 1929, commonly known as Chess Praxis; and Die Blockade (The Blockade), 1925, although much in this book is generally held to be a rehash of material already presented in Mein System. Mein System is considered to be one of the most influential chess books of all time. It sets out Nimzowitsch's most important ideas, while his second most influential work, Chess Praxis, elaborates upon these ideas, adds a few new ones, and has immense value as a stimulating collection of Nimzowitsch's own games accompanied by his idiosyncratic, hyperbolic commentary which is often as entertaining as instructive. Nimzowitsch's chess theories, when first propounded, flew in the face of widely held orthodoxies enunciated by the dominant theorist of the era, Siegbert Tarrasch, and his disciples. Tarrasch's rigid generalizations drew on the earlier work of Wilhelm Steinitz, and were upheld by Tarrasch's sharp tongue when dismissing the opinions of doubters. While the greatest players of the time, among them Alekhine, Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca, clearly did not allow their play to be hobbled by blind adherence to general concepts that the center had to be controlled by pawns, that development had to happen in support of this control, that rooks always belong on open files, that wing openings were unsound—core ideas of Tarrasch's chess philosophy as popularly understood—beginners were taught to think of these generalizations as unalterable principles. Nimzowitsch supplemented many of the earlier simplistic assumptions about chess strategy by enunciating in his turn a further number