Project approval after AI review on 2 November 2026. Human proofreading is still pending.
Hypermodernism: the chess revolution
At a glance
Hypermodernism, or the hypermodern school, is a way of thinking in chess: you can control the centre not only with pawns but also with pieces from a distance. Aaron Nimzowitsch saw himself as one of its founders and called the years 1911 to 1914 a chess revolution. At the board it teaches you to restrain and attack an enemy pawn centre instead of fearing it.
In short
In Nimzowitsch’s time, Siegbert Tarrasch was the best-known chess teacher in the German-speaking world. He taught: occupy the centre with pawns. Anyone who gave up a pawn from the centre was seen as someone who surrenders the centre.
Nimzowitsch disagreed: the centre consists of squares, not of pawns. Pawns do hold the centre most securely, but they also block paths. Pieces in the centre can replace the pawns. Rooks and bishops, too, can put pressure on the centre from a distance.
In “My System” he sums up the new ideas in three statements. The first is about the elastic centre, that is, a centre full of possibilities. The second says: an advancing pawn roller is less dangerous than it looks. The third: a group of squares of the same colour can become weak as a whole.
In his own words, Nimzowitsch began in 1911 with games against Salwe and Löwenfisch. In 1913 he openly attacked Tarrasch’s teaching in magazine articles. At the All-Russian Masters’ Tournament, playing Black against Gregory, he chose not to occupy the centre with pawns. He called this game a founding game of the new style of play.
The movement only got the name hypermodern later, Nimzowitsch writes. Besides him, Richard Réti and Gyula Breyer are counted among its members. Nimzowitsch praises later innovations by other masters, such as Alekhine’s Defence. But he sees himself as the one who found the basic ideas first.
Summarised by the editors in their own words. This is not a quotation.
Not against everything old
Nimzowitsch did not simply want to overturn the old rules. He praised Steinitz, whose ideas, in his opinion, Tarrasch had watered down. The new school, too, was bound by the laws of logic, he writes. It wanted to understand rigid principles and bring them to life, not abolish them.
Among his own new ideas he counts overprotection and prophylaxis. For him, they too belong to the new movement.
To play through
In lesson 8 you first learn why the centre matters. Lesson 39 shows how a knight controls the centre from a free square. In lesson 32 you slow down and blockade a pawn majority in the centre.
Against Gregory, Nimzowitsch does without centre pawns of his own early on. Against Réti he meets an opponent who plays hypermodern chess himself. Against Olson he gives up a pawn and shows that mobile pawns can count for more than an extra pawn.
Today’s view
Today neither teaching holds on its own. A pawn centre is strong if you can hold it. Pieces acting from a distance are strong if they can attack that centre.
How far apart Nimzowitsch and Tarrasch really were on the substance is still disputed today. Both attacked each other sharply in magazines.
Where to find it in Nimzowitsch
- My System: Nachtrag, 1. Die allgemeine Lage der Dinge vor 1911 original text not yet published
Nimzowitsch’s look back at his first attacks on the old teaching about the centre, with his article against Tarrasch’s book.
- My System: Nachtrag, 2. Die revolutionären Thesen original text not yet published
The three revolutionary theses: the elastic centre, the harmlessness of the pawn roller and weak squares of one colour.
- My System: Nachtrag, 3. Die revolutionäre Theorie wird in revolutionäre Praxis umgesetzt. Die Stammpartie des ideellen Damengambits original text not yet published
The game against Gregory, in which Black chooses not to occupy the centre with pawns.
- My System: Nachtrag, 5. Ausbau und Entwicklung der Schachrevolution in den Jahren 1914 bis 1926 original text not yet published
How other masters took the new ideas further up to 1926, such as Alekhine, Réti and Grünfeld.
- Essays: Die „Aufgabe des Zentrums“ - ein Vorurteil original text not yet published
Essay: the centre consists of squares, not of pawns, and pieces can replace pawns.
- Essays: Das neue System original text not yet published
Essay with Nimzowitsch’s first laws of chess strategy, among them the elastic centre.