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Nimzo-Larsen 1.b3 surprise opening system reloaded!

9 Mar 2022839 viewsEnglish (US)

Magnus Carlsen reverses iconic Bent Larsen loss to Boris Spassky played in the 1970 USSR vs Rest of World match

Hi all

Magnus Carlsen made an important theoretical improvement over an iconic loss of Bent Larsen

Analysis video

https://lichess.org/study/qAruqlzw/tz9FZ4bu#11

The Iconic loss which damaged the popularity of the Nimzo-Larsen system was this famous loss of Bent Larsen to Boris Spassky :

https://lichess.org/study/qAruqlzw/BtaIS3zV#11

Even in iconic losses, there are alternative resources available
The Nimzo-Larsen opening is a great surprise weapon of choice with a wealth of positional and transpositional options
Famous losses actually sometimes make an opening more effective later if it is not widely analysed as much as it should have been
I love personally 1.b3 as a surprise weapon as well as 1.Nc3. I absolutely love also then finding in details Nc3 based systems as example the Grand-Prix attack against the Sicilian to have this option of transposing unexpectedly from 1.Nc3 to later a Grand Prix attack. 1.b3 has the same kind of transpositional properties and can transpose into things like the King's Indian attack, Bird's opening, double fianchetto systems and more. No wonder Bent larsen used it with such great effect to be board 1 above Bobby Fischer in the epic USSR vs rest of world match of 1970.
The love of transpositions just increases with age as you get exposure to different pawn structures and openings and know more about how to transpose comfortably to favorable versions of other openings