Danish FM Carsten Hansen gets the big jobs at Gambit. Rather than being able to zero in on key lines in one variation, he takes on huge complexes. Witness his two-volume work on the English and his latest effort, THE NIMZO-INDIAN: 4.e3 (see Jeremy Silman’s review on the same book by clicking HERE).

This is a huge amount of material to cover. Earlier attempts were made by Taimanov, Gligoric and Pliester, but theory has advanced greatly since the last of these book was published back in 1995. Hansen is to be commended for taking on such a difficult project, but as he himself admits in the introduction, “The material in this book is mainly theory with some strategic commentary where relevant. This may make this book a little heavy to deal with for some players. And some of the moves may seem difficult to understand.” Hansen’s advice is to consult a coach for explanation when necessary or, failing that, use Fritz as a sounding board. This may work for some, but I would suspect this book is primarily aimed at players of master level and beyond.

This book is well researched, containing all relevant material up to September of this year! It covers all systems after 4.e3, accepting those that transpose into lines of the Saemisch (For example: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 c5 5.a3). Rarely playing 1.d4, I will confine my examination of this book to lines that I play as Black.

Fischer’s favorite 4…b6 gets extensive coverage. I was quite surprised to discover that Black can reach equality after 5.Ne2 not only by the standard 5…Ba6 and 5…Ne4, but also by 5…Bb7. The analysis of 5.Bd3 Bb7 b7 6.Nf3 0-0 7.0-0 c5 8.Na4 cxd4 correctly points out that 9.a3 Bd6!? is doing well for Black, but that he is struggling after the exact move order 9.exd4 Re8 10.a3 Bf8 ( I wonder if Black can play 10…Bd6!?, which to my knowledge has never been tried here. The plan is the usual …Bxf3, …Nc6, …e5 and …d5) 11.b4 d6 12.Bb2 Nbd7 13.Re1 (leaving the Knight on a4 as long as possible) 13…a5 14.Nc3 (avoiding the plan of …axb4 and …b5 sacrificing a pawn for the d5-square. This idea in analogous positions was first discovered by Julio Kaplan and later played with success by Nick DeFirmian and Axel Ornstein.). The main line to end the chapter is R. Hernandez-Vilela, Havana 1985. In short, one would have liked to see more independent work in this chapter, but such a criticism would be unfair because that is not what this book aimed to be nor could be, considering that 320 pages could easily be written on 4…b6 alone.

How does THE NIMZO-INDIAN: 4.e3 differ from a data dump? I would say by quite a lot. There is prose explanation throughout to guide the reader. Hansen has also identified the main lines as well and the massive amount of material can be easily tracked down. All said, this is a book that can be best used by amateur players with either a trainer or in conjunction with more specialized works that deal with specific variations (for example for 4…b6, Craigg Pritchett’s old book is still worthwhile reading).