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Before we start, I recommend to our readers to also enjoy Pál Benkö’s two-part selection of Réti’s endgame studies, celebrating his 125th birthday in 2014 (see part 1 and part 2).
As our Hungarian study expert outlined in his selection, Richard Réti was born on May 28th 1889 in Bösing in Austria-Hungary (now Slovakia; Réti became a Czechoslovakian after Austria-Hungary split in 1918) as brother of the musical composer and pianist Rudolph Reti (Rudolph did not use the accent above the “e”), who later studied mathematics in Vienna.
As I am not an expert on opening theory or practical play, I can’t say anything theoretical about the Réti opening 1.♘f3. It was, as Réti stated, introduced into master play in early 1923. Theorists say it is in line with Réti’s “hypermodern” approach on chess, which is the term used for the ideas after World War I, challenging the classical understanding of European masters, such as the “Praeceptor Germaniae” Siegbert Tarrasch. One of the most famous contributions to hypermodernism might be Nimzowitsch’s book “My System”, but Réti was among the vocal supporters of those new ideas, culminating on one hand is his opening, the main line characterized by 1...d5 2.c4, otherwise leading often into other openings, and on the other hand in his books Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and posthumously Masters of the Chess Board (1933, first published in Germany in 1930) which are regarded as classics still worth reading today.
Owing to Réti’s early death on June 6th 1929, both books are in the public domain in almost all countries, so you can find a full transcript of the first book with replayable positions [in the “Open Chess Books” project].[1] As of writing this, I was unable to find the full second book on a trustworthy website for free. Both books have still been reprinted in the 2010s while in the public domain, but the publisher does not seem to understand how copyright works, claiming it for the entire book (hint: Réti’s text isn’t copyrightable).
One of Réti’s first and also most famous endgame studies shows a geometrical manoeuvre later named the “Réti manoeuvre”. Two kings, two pawns, one seemingly stopped and one seemingly unstoppable, leading to a draw by a geometrical motif. There is however a backstory which I found in Albin Pötzsch’s 2018 book collecting his articles in the German magazine “Schach-Magazin 64” (not to be confused with either the “64” or the “64 - Shakhmatnoe obozrenie”).
In 2011 Pötzsch reported the following episode from the November 5th 1914 simultaneous exhibition by Alexander Alekhine in Moscow (at that time a major city but not the capital until 1918).[2] Hundreds of people wanted to play the master but due to him contracting a cold he wanted to limit the number of players to 30. The organizers obliged and in the end 33 opponents were allowed to play. One of the opponents was a young man named Zuckermann, later champion of Warsaw and Paris. This does not seem to be Josef Cukierman, from what I can see about his biography. Any information on Zuckermann would be welcome. Zuckermann sat next to Vladimir Neustadt (not to be confused with chess composer Vladimir Neistadt, born in 1950), a then 16-year old boy, later a literary critic and Pushkin expert about whom does not seem to be much known outside of Russia, so I can’t provide more details on him. Finishing a game, Alekhine saw the following draw combination and played 1.e6. You can see the actual end of the game at the end of the article, the following board shows Alekhine’s idea.
From this position after 1.e6 Alekhine hoped for ...fxe6 2.dxe6 ♞xe6 3.♘xe6 ♝xe6 4.♔g3 a5 5.♔f4 a4 6.♔e5 ♝f7? 7.♔d4 a3 8.♔c3 a2 9.♔b2= believing that the endgame was already a draw after 3.♗xe6, making this an example of the Réti manoeuvre. (See full analysis below.)
Neustadt talked with Zuckermann about his plan to capture first with the pawn and then with the knight, but as Alekhine came to the board, he got confused and immediately took with the knight instead. After 1.e6 ♞xe6 2.dxe6 Alekhine was about to go, but Neustadt decided to immediately reply with 2...♝xe6 after which Alekhine exclaimed the Russian equivalent to “What a pity!” and resigned. Then Alekhine demonstrated the line he hoped for (which was still possible in the case of 2...fxe6 3.♘xe6! etc.), as on the replayable board above (starting the conversation with: “Of course White is lost, but I wanted to see if [...]”). It dawned on Neustadt that the Russian master saw all of this prior to playing 1.e6. Likely it also dawned on him that he won “by accident”, as his originally planned play might have been a draw. As we know today, the endgame is a bit more complicated.
The great mystery remains why Alekhine, who sometimes complained on how his opponents hinder him to create real beauty, did not publish this position as an endgame study, or why the position was not widespread. Instead, Richard Réti, whose position clearly has the greater appeal by looking completely lost to even a beginner who doesn’t need to count or know the “pawn square” in which the king can stop the promotion, published his study in Bernhard Kagan’s magazine Kagans neueste Schachnachrichten, making it world-famous after having it published in the Deutsch-Österreichische Tageszeitung a few months earlier. You most likely know the study but can enjoy it again as the third replayable entry below this article, directly after the ending of the game diagrammed above and a Gunst study related to a game variation. Maybe if the 22-year-old future world champion had taken the effort and known how to properly advertise his idea in widespread chess magazines so everyone could see it, the manoeuvre would be named after him. But even then, Réti’s setting would have been the one that demonstrated the idea best for players, and in a correct form as Alekhine didn’t know Black still could win...
In the second part, we will look at what Mandler says in the book Sämtliche Studien von Richard Réti about the titular hero. Also, a short overview of his tourney successes over the board will be given alongside with a small selection of Réti games your author likes.
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[1] Legal note: Mexico has a general “life+100” copyright, but apparently for books there is an exception shortening it to 50 years after death. I still advise Mexican readers to look up their laws prior to looking at the transcript.
[The copyright in Jamaica and Cote d’Ivoire exceeds 90 years after death], so readers in those countries might legally not be allowed to click the link to the transcript.
[2] The Russian capital for almost two centuries was the city then recently renamed to Petrograd, until 1 September 1914 Saint Petersburg, also the site of a major chess tourney in April/May 1914 won by world champion Lasker.
Correction May 25: Added information on Réti's nationality after 1918. In an earlier version of this article, Reti's birthplace, Bösing, was indicated as being in Hungary instead of Austria-Hungary.
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