Wednesday 17 September 2008

FAMOUS GAMES BY FAMOUS PLAYERS PART 5


Richard Réti was born in may 28th 1889 in Pezinok (now Slovakia). He was one of the best players in the world during the early 20th century. He was a classical chess player during his early career being a keen Kings gambit player.
After the First World War, Reti's play underwent a radical change, and he became one of the leading proponents of hypermodernism, along with Aron Nimzowitsch,Gyula Breyer, Savielly Tartakower and others.
When Frank Marshall the USA champion entered european competion again after world war 1, he was worried how he would fare against this "new craze hypermodernism". But it turned out just to be chess.
Reti has an openning named after him the Réti Opening (1. Nf3 d5 2. c4), with which he famously defeated the world champion Jose Raul Capablanca in New York in 1924 (his most famous game).
This defeat was the first time Jose Raul Capablanca had lost since he had became world champion,in fact it was the first defeat for Capablanca for 8 years.
Reti's openning can be transformed into the Catalan and English opennings with ease.It is still a commonly used opening by Grandmasters today.
Reti passed away a week after turning forty from scarlet fever, had he lived longer and not been an hypermodern who knows what chess heights he could of reached.
Although Reti was a great player and won many tornaments,i feel he never attained his true worth chesswise,even in his short life.
In 1942 Alekhine was taken ill with scarlet fever and was shocked to find he was the same Prague hospital where Reti had died from the disease in 1929.
Réti also composed numerous endgame studies this being one of his best known.




White to play and draw
• 1. Kg7! h4
• 2. Kf6 Kb6 (or 2. ... h3 3. Ke7 and the white king can support its own pawn)
• 3. Ke5!! (and now the white king comes just in time to the white pawn, or catches the black one)
• 3. ... h3
• 4. Kd6 and draws

I have to give the Capablanca defeat New york 1924 Reti's win made front page news.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting game, didn't see it before. Even the greatest ones ... though very good play by Reti.

I found another Reti game, saw it a long time ago:

Reti- Tartakover, 1910, Vienna:

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Qd3 e5 6. dxe5 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 Qxe5 8. O-O-O Nxe4
9. Qd8+!! Kxd8 10. Bg5+ Kc7 11. Bd8# 1-0

Yeah, looks like he really had great potential.

chessx said...

Yes it's a shame he died so young.Thanks for the game.