Someone who plays a good defence to 1.d4 will almost always play a good defence to 1.e4 as well. If you can't decide what to play against 1.e4 then either play some practice games with an opening you are thinking of playing or have a quick look at a book on a given opening. Or, if you are really lazy, get one of your friends to teach you their defence to 1.e4 and start playing it.

Umm.... Because its a totally sound way to play get healthy, active piece play? The classically 'closed' Nimzo centers are actually quite specific variations, and certainly not the norm.  And its mainly black who chooses to enter them or not.

In fact you can see how flexible the Nimzo is by considering that some people happily pair it with the 3 Nf3 Modern Benoni and some with the QGD The QID isn't as flexible.

Actually the Nimzo is so ubiquitous for strong players, it'd be much more instructive to consider who hasn't played it

Quote:


Yes, the French is acceptable with the Nimzo/QID repertoire because of closed structures and positional strategic play. I do not mentioned the French, because I consider the Ruy Lopez in center stage for a player who choose the Nimzo/QID and maybe I put it in third place because in the majority of French positions, Black is trying to open the game and when that happens a burst of energy arise and more sharp situations could occur like the rook sacrifice in f3. 

Model players for Nimzo/QID repertoire are: Capablanca, Petrosian, Karpov, Carlsen, Adams and Kramnik, Leko, Caruana, Gelfand, Botvinnik (yes the French!). It is very easy to see what openings are common to all these players.

Quote:
 

Yes the Nimzo does have the potential of plenty of rigid/closed centers. 

But - at blacks choice! - you can play it perfectly rationally and almost never get a rigid/closed center You can even, should be the mood take you, arrange to not swap the bishop on c3 against most lines! And you can certainly indulge in some very scary madness.   

You'd have to be really very set in your ways for the Nimzo to be a worry. Now, the QID has rather more of a fixed, relatively solid character, and could be a style issue for some people.

Oh, the Sicillian/Hedgehog like lines are stuff like 4 Qc2 c5, 3 Nf3 b6 4 a3 Ba6 ^ Bb7,c5 etc.  Closer in feel to the e6 Sicillian stuff than anything else vs 1 d4 I'd think.

Quote:


I do not know what is to play a Nimzo/QID like a Sicilian Rauzer or Scheveningen because the characteristics needed in terms of style are completely diferent. In that way, everything is possible and you can say that it is possible to play a Caro-Kann like a Sicilian (attack on opposite sides)when they are again very diferent openings in style. It is not possible to put all openings in the same bag for the simple reason that they have diferent characteristics. It is important to know the diferent styles and the openings that belong to each one when choosing openings or building a repertoire. Hedgehog positions from Sicilian to English or Nimzo/QID have diferent characteristics and could not be placed in the same bag of style. Sicilians are sharp openings that demand concrete calculations and Nimzo/QID is a solid opening for a sistematic logical thread. Sicilians are for the ones who are willing to take risks. These are characteristics of styles and there are several others. 

Quote:


Flexible is a characteristic of certain openings but what gives an ilustration of styles other than certain important characteristics is for example structure: Dynamic centre, mobile or open and on the other hand rigid centre 
or closed. An opening could have diferent types of structures but the important point is the general characteristic, the common type that is more characteristic of a certain style and not one particular variation that leads to a type of structure that is not a common type in that opening. The transition from opening to middlegame is very important, because some types of positions will suit you while others not. Players are divided by styles too and top players can play everything but each player belongs to a certain style and only several openings belong to that style and not all openings they could play. Sicilian belongs to Open (general), Dynamic (specific) or Mobile centre (specific) in transition from opening to middlegame and although Dynamic and Mobile centre could be specific in Nimzo, Rigid and Closed centre are the general characteristics that you cannot find in Sicilian, thats why certain openings because of diferent and general characteristics belong to diferent types of style. I do not had restricted the question to specific ways to play the Nimzo/QID, on the contrary, I restricted the question to the general characteristics typical of each opening. Magnus Calsen for example is a reflector in style like Karpov or Adams and the Ruy Lopez, Nimzo/QID are the openings that belong to the roots of their style if you look at them together finding their common openings. Of course he plays everything, Grunfelds, Sicilians, KIDS and whatever under the sun, but the ones that belong only to the roots of his style are there.           

My nominees are
* 1..e6 (French), as it can be played universally and because play in the Winawer also has certain similarities with the Nimzo.
* the positional (and more complex) ..e6-Sicilians such as the Paulsen (Kan and Taimanov, also featuring ..Bb4 and ..Bxc3+ moves in certain cases), are maybe better suited for a player of the NID, especially if he likes throwing in early ..c5s, and complex play.
* the Ruy Lopez and even the Caro-Kann cannot be excluded from the list, either. 
It all depends how you prefer to play the NID.

Quote:


Because you see a huge range of styles playing the Nimzo or top players playing it, doesn´t mean that everything could fit because top players expand their styles to reach universal style sometimes and not all openings really fit the style of the nimzo player. Top players who play all openings in all styles are not a model for you, but only the natural choices that belong to the Nimzo player style or are very near that style and this means only several openings because looking at top players could sometimes raise confusion and wrong conclusions. In my view, the only choices that belong to the same style of Nimzo (thinking in General Concepts) are: Ruy Lopez, Ruy Lopez Closed, Berlin or Petrov and Caro-Kann if you like endings. Sicilian do not belong to the same style and it is more about facts and calculations and more about playing the KID or Grunfeld, but if you want to be universal player go for it, but the better results will always be on the roots of our style!

You will never be able to
play well variations or openings
that don't suit you.