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A long time ago I worked together with Dutch IM Leon Pliester (who unfortunately died in 2012) on a book about the Nimzo-Indian and especially the Rubinstein complex. He was asked to write a book about this opening and had asked me to help him to indicate the advantages Black has in these lines.
As I liked to play the so-called Hübner Variation, I showed him the problems White sometimes has in these lines with the doubled pawns on c3 and c4. If Black manages to exchange the white-squared bishops and win the pawn on c4 by taking it with a knight, White can easily be in big trouble.
When we analysed these lines together and a fantastic knight appeared on c4 Leon liked to call it an elephant! "This knight puts White under such heavy pressure that it can only be an elephant."
In a kind of tribute to Leon I later often managed to create such an "elephant" in my games, and in a game against the strong Dutch player Michiel Blok, I did not only manage to bring my knight to c4 but also won a pawn doing so.
The "elephant" on c4 and the extra pawn helped me to win a long and complicated endgame though Blok defended tenaciously. However, after the game I discovered that I had a much quicker win. I had seen the idea and I had calculated the critical variation but when I reached the diagram position in my mind I did not see how to make progress. Can you do better and do you see what Black should play in this position?
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