Richard Réti

Richard Réti
Full name	Richard Réti
Country	Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia
Born	28 May 1889(1889-05-28) Bösing, Austria-Hungary (now Pezinok, Slovakia)
Died	6 June 1929(1929-06-06) (aged 40) Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czechia)

Richard Réti (28 May 1889, Bösing (now Pezinok) – 6 June 1929, Prague) was an ethnic Jewish, Austrian-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies. He was born in Pezinok which at the time was in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, where his father worked as a physician in the service of the Austrian military.

His older brother Rudolph Reti [sic: he did not use the acute accent] was a noted pianist, musical theorist, and composer. He is the great-grandfather of the German painter Elias Maria Reti.

Biography

Réti came to Vienna to study mathematics at Vienna University. One of the top players in the world during the 1910s and 1920s, he began his career as a fiercely combinative classical player, favoring openings such as the King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4). However, after the end of the First World War, his playing style underwent a radical change, and he became one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism, along with Aron Nimzowitsch and others. Indeed, with the notable exception of Nimzowitsch's acclaimed book My System, he is considered to be the movement's foremost literary contributor. He had his greatest early tournament successes in the period 1918 through 1921, in tournaments in Kaschau (Košice) (1918), Rotterdam (1919), Amsterdam (1920), Vienna (1920), and Gothenburg (1921). The Réti Opening (1.Nf3) is named after him. Réti famously defeated the world champion José Raúl Capablanca in the New York 1924 chess tournament using this opening – Capablanca's first defeat in eight years, the only one to Réti, and the first since becoming World Champion. Réti was also a notable composer of endgame studies.

In 1925 Réti set, and for a time held, the world record for blindfold chess with twenty-nine games played simultaneously. He won twenty-one of these, drew six, and only lost two.

His writings have also become "classics" in the chess world. Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and Masters of the Chess Board (1933) are still studied today.

Réti died on 6 June 1929 in Prague of scarlet fever. His ashes are buried in the grave of Réti's father Dr. Samuel Réti in the Jewish section of Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna, in Section T1, Group 51, Row 5, Grave 34.

Famous endgame study

Richard Réti, 1921

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White to move and draw

Main article: Réti endgame study

Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king. The idea of the solution is to move the king to advance on both pawns at the same time using specific properties of the chess geometry.

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

Notable chess games

• Richard Réti vs Akiba Rubinstein, Karlsbad 1923, King's Indian Attack: General (A11), 1-0 A model game for Réti-type opening.
• Richard Réti vs Jose Raul Capablanca, New York 1924, English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. King's Indian Formation (A15), 1-0 The famous victory over Capablanca.

A collection of his games was published as Reti's Games of Chess, annotated by H. Golombek, republished by Dover (1974).

Publications

• Modern Ideas In Chess (1923)
• Masters Of The Chess Board (1933) ISBN 0-486-23384-7

External links

• Richard Réti player profile at ChessGames.com
• Edward Winter, The Réti Brothers
• 20 studies of Richard Reti
• Complete works of Richard Reti (Spanish)