Richard Réti | |
---|---|
Full name | Richard Réti |
Country | Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia |
Born |
Bösing, Austria-Hungary (now Pezinok, Slovakia) |
28 May 1889
Died | 6 June 1929 Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) |
(aged 40)
Richard Réti (28 May 1889, Bösing, now Pezinok – 6 June 1929, Prague) was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovak chess grandmaster, chess author, and composer of endgame studies.
Réti was born in Bazin 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 (who 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.
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 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 changed, and he became one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism, along with Aron Nimzowitsch and others. With the exception of Nimzowitsch's book My System, he is considered to be the movement's foremost literary contributor. He had his greatest early 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 d5 2.c4) is named after him. Réti defeated the world champion José Raúl Capablanca in the New York 1924 chess tournament using this opening – Capablanca's first defeat in eight years, his only one to Réti, and his first since becoming World Champion. This tournament was also the only occasion in which he beat future World Champion Alexander Alekhine, accomplishing this feat in the same number of moves, with the same final move (31. Rd1-d5). Réti was also a notable composer of endgame studies.