Originally posted by hopscotchYes, the ep rule was invented when Nimzowich wrote this.
When this book was written was the en passant rule invented yet? I think it was around the early 1900's... I'm about 10-15 pages into it and I'm wondering if I'm correct in deducing that a lot of the tactics don't take en passant into account.
Have you an example of when you think the tactics miss the ep rule?
Originally posted by RedmikeI don't have any examples with me. Thanks. Maybe I was just reading the damn descriptive notation incorrectly. I'll look at it again.
Yes, the ep rule was invented when Nimzowich wrote this.
Have you an example of when you think the tactics miss the ep rule?
Nimzovitch's My System was published in German in the late 1920's. The en passant rule was known in 15th Century but wasn't generally used until the 18th. The original reason for the pawn's two square first move was to speed up the game. The en passant rule was an attempt to retain the adjacent pawn's ability to capture the pawn "in passing." Hope this helps.
Originally posted by buddy2Thanks, i've always wondered why that move exists 🙂
Nimzovitch's My System was published in German in the late 1920's. The en passant rule was known in 15th Century but wasn't generally used until the 18th. The original reason for the pawn's two square first move was to speed up the game. The en passant rule was an attempt to retain the adjacent pawn's ability to capture the pawn "in passing." Hope this helps.
Originally posted by buddy2"passar bataglia", meaning to dodge the fight. The Italians did not recognize the en passant rule, and a pawn could not capture a pawn that moved two spaces forward and passed it. This changed in 1880 when Italy joined the rest of the chess world and made it universal.
and the passar bataglia law is...???
Originally posted by buddy2According to the history books on chess, the en passant rule immediately followed the change in rules that pawns could move two squares on the first move. This was seen as a necessity to fix the problem of the pawn being able to move 2 squares at once.
Nimzovitch's My System was published in German in the late 1920's. The en passant rule was known in 15th Century but wasn't generally used until the 18th. The original reason for the pawn's two square first move was to speed up the game. The en passant rule was an attempt to retain the adjacent pawn's ability to capture the pawn "in passing." Hope this helps.
Ok, I was incorrect in my original assumption about en passant being overlooked in Nimzo's book, I am still learning descriptive notation, my apologies.
I will leave to you kind people who posted in this thread with this piece of great prose that I found in My System:
... the following postulates are necessary.
(1) If one has allowed the enemy to establish fee, mobile centre pawn, the latter must be regarded as a dangerous criminal. Against him all our chess fury must be directed: so that the second postulate follows at once:
(2) Such a pawn must either be executed, or be put under restraint. Accordingly we condemn the criminal either to death or to imprisonment for life. Or we can pleasantly combine the two by, say, first condemning him to death, then commuting his sentence to life imprisonment; or, what is the commoner case, we keep him under restraint until he is quite impotent, and then show our manly courage by executing the death sentence.