Vladimir Nenarokov

     Vladimir Nenarokov (January 4, 1880 – December 13, 1953) is hardly remembered these days. Although he was 70 years old, in recognition of his past performances he was on the first list of players to be awarded the IM title in 1950.  Chessmetrics assigns him a high rating of 2546 in 1901, placing him at number 38 in the world. Topping the list were Lasker and Pillsbury. 
     Nenarokov authored many chess books, mostly on openings as well as a few introductory books. He was a positional player with superb defensive skill and conducted the endgame with precision. 
     Nenarokov was among the Masters who came to the fore in the days before the Russian Revolution. Others were Grigoriev, Duz-Chotimirsy, Ilyin-Zhenevsky, I, and A. Rabinowicz and Romanovsky. 
     Born in Moscow, Nenarokov began playing at the age of 14, but did not have the opportunity to face strong opposition and so analyzed the games of masters and studied theory. 
     He first appeared in the Moscow Chess Club in 1898. He wanted to enter a tournament for the club championship, but being an unknown, he asked the club managers if they would evaluate his strength. He ended up defeating third (1750-1875), second (1875-2000) and first (2000-2150) category players! Then a well known local master named Solovtsov gave Nenarokov an f-Pawn handicap and Nenarokov won that game, too. 
     In September of 1899 he made his debut in a major event, the First All-Russian Tournament, held in Moscow. Chigorin won the event and Nenarokov tied for 6th-7th. 
     He continued to make rapid progress and played in the Second All-Russian Tournament in 1900-1901 and did quite well. The top finishers were Chigorin, Shiffers, Janowski, Goncharov and Nenarokov. 

Tournament book 3rd All-Russian 1904

     He played in many other big tournaments held in Russia before the Revolution and scored excellent results. He competed in USSR Championships in 1923, 1924 and 1927. 
     In 1908 the 16 year old Alekhine challenged Nenarokov, then city champion, to a match, but Alekhine was not ready to meet such a strong player and after losing three games in a row, he abandoned the match. 
     Since 1959 there has been a spurious game, Alekhine-Nenarokov, floating around that first made print in a letter to the editor in Chess Review. Edward Winter's site has complete details on the hoax. 
     Nenarokov was Moscow City champion in 1900, 1908, 1922 and 1924. His Soviet Master title was awarded on the basis of his drawing Tartakower in a match (+2 -2 =0) in 1905 and defeating Fyodor Duz-Khotimirsky (+5 –3 =1) in 1907. 
     He played in the great tournament at St. Petersburg in 1909, or rather he started to play. There were actually 22 players at the start of the tournament, but a player named Goldfarb withdrew because of illness and another named Rozanov withdrew because urgent family matters forced him to return to his home in Moscow. For unknown reasons Nenarokov withdrew without even informing the tournament director. The games of all three players were not counted. 
     The following game was played in the 1924 USSR Championship which was a great success for Bogoljubow who +13 -0 =4.   The tournament started out as a real horse race when Bogoljubow won his first eight games and Romanovsky, the defending champion, scored 7.5 in his first eight game. Romanovsky kept pace with Bogoljubow until round 13, but then he began to fade. 
     Romanovsky ended up a distant 2nd with 12.5 while Bohatirchuk and Levenfish shared 3rd and 4th with 11.5. Iyla Rabinovich was 5th with 10.0. Nenarokov (+7 -5 =5) tied with Vilner and Selezniev with 9.5.  His opponent in this games finished last with a score of +1 -11 =5. 
     Nenarokov spent the last years of his life living Ashkhabad, which since 1924 has been the capital city of the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan on the Eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. During that time he was active with the local chess organization. 

About the Stonewall: 
     I have a book on the Stonewall by an author who shall remain anonymous. One reviewer described this author's books as notoriously rife with factual errors, junk, filled with inane comments, dull and worthless, filled with useless trivia, wasted ink, atrocious, a very poor writer and ridiculous...and that describes just one of his books! That's a bit harsh; the poor guy's books aren't THAT bad; I have a couple and actually kind of enjoy them. 
     At the beginning of the book the author says the Stonewall is one of the easiest to openings to play and yet it's also one of the rarest at the master level and while it was once popular, it doesn't enjoy a very good reputation these days. There's a reason you don't see top level GMs playing the Stonewall. 
     He then goes on to try and prove the Stonewall is worth playing, but I noticed he put the best defense at the end of the book and didn't devote nearly as much time to it as he did the variations where black cooperates by allowing white his typical Stonewall setup. 
     When black fianchettoes, if white proceeds with the standard setup he will get nothing because the standard attacking ideas are no longer feasible. Therefore, if black fianchettoes white is advised to abandon the Stonewall and choose another strategy. 
     Naturally, among amateurs the Stonewall is no better or no worse than, say, the Najdorf Sicilian, because we amateurs play crappy chess no matter what the opening is. The truth is we rating challenged masses CAN play the Stonewall, but don't expect it, or any opening, to automatically chalk up a lot of wins. To do that you have to play better than your opponent in more areas than just the opening.