Hypermodernism is a cluster of openings that all fall under the same strategy of occupying the center not with mere pawns, but with more powerful pieces such as knights and bishops. (1.Nf3. 1.b3-2.Bb3). But back in the 1900s, almost every game had started with e4 or d4. That is until Richard Réti came along, and introduced the world to his hypermodern ideas.
It came to no surprise that his openings were mystifyingly strange in terms of how far openings went. Against Oldrich Duras, he got to showcase his masterfully romantic lines with a dynamic opening consisting of him playing kings gambit and queens gambit in the same game and then sacrificing just about every piece he had. All while still in the middle game. With threatening checkmate with some smooth schemes, he had gained an unforgiving attack, which made it impossible for Duras ever to regain an advantage.
It started off as a kings gambit, an opening known to please romantic players. It involves a lot of theory and sets off a lot of fireworks at the start. After 2..exf5 Réti played the oldest - and most common reply to the capture. But then came 3.d5. Today, this opening is looked down on and has very low respect, mainly because of all the complicated lines and the complete lack of center pawns.
But as you know for Réti, he doesn't use pawns for center control. So this was perfect. After 4...exd5, black plays 4...Nf6. A waiting move, a move to get the lead in development. But with the pawn under fire, Réti can either defend, or leave it to die and develop a piece. But as his kings gambit like position is already gone, he tries for a queens gambit position with 5...c4, c6, (if Réti took then Nxc6 and a development lead for black.), d5 and it is a kings gambit to queens. (double gambit?)
The game continues with both side doing (might I say boring) moves to gain rapid development, by just shuffling the pieces out of their starting square. (7.Bxf4, 7...Bb4+, 8.Nc3, 8...0-0, 9.Bc3.), but the game actually got interesting when the first signs of a real attacked showed up, with 9...Re8+, where the rook slides over one square to attack the un-castled white king. but now white has a choice to make. White can play a game without castling, or he can block it with a bishop, but then it makes it prune to pins, but that is better than an exposed king. So Réti decides to play Be5.
Black will continue an attack with Be6, to attack the queenside pawn formation. But, Réti can salvage the pawns as well as improving them on the same move with c5. Also a multi-purposed move because it blocks the black bishop from any easy escape from the queens prison.
But now comes the first mistake of the game, when black played 9...Ng4!?. Now, lets be honest, for anybody about my level this would seem like a good move, because it leads up to f6 and could possibly win a bishop. But, castling makes the pin go away, and then if Réti were to play h3, it would push the knight away as easily as it came here, while gaining a tempo at the same time. So of course Réti plays 12.0-0, and removes the pin.
Going back to a few moves ago when Réti played h3 to block the black bishop in the "queens prison", black knows that it will take two or more moves to relocate the bishop out of their, so he just takes the knight with 12..Bxc3 and Réti recaptures with 13.Bxc3.
But Black sees a fork. A risky fork, a fork where you will need to be able to calculate many many moves ahead to see if it is really successful. But what fun is chess without any romantic elements? But then after 13...Ne3? Réti find the first of his two total brilliants of this game. 14.Bxh7!! Reason why? well if black had accepted this trojan horse, then Réti would have had Qd3+, which would be forking the king and knight.
And if he didn't take? then that bishop is the start of one of the most aggressive attacks in Réti's chess history.
After the tricky fork, Réti will have three pieces under the line of fire. The rook, the bishop, and the queen. A pretty obvious choice is to save the queen, but the question was were. Perhaps d3, because it looks the most natural. After all, it saves the knight as well. But that is a bad move. I will not go into the exact reasons, but I have made an extra line above. Not a bad position he will be in, just not an easy one to win. The other two options that look valid are c1 and d2 because then it has the potential to bring the queen into the attack. If you looked at the thumbnail though, you can see Réti chose d1 to create more flexibility for the rooks.
Even after Réti sacrificed the bishop, they seem to still be unaware about the attacks that are soon to come, so they take the rook with Nxf1? hoping to add some more material advantage to please the black king. Now the main reason why Réti went Qd2 was to get a few more diagonals on the king. Since the knight was moved, it opened up a line for the queen to go straight to the kings fortress, with Qh6! (of course black cant take because of the pin on e5)
These types of dynamic attacks are painfully hard to defend against, but anything will work to save the king from checkmate. So the move black decided on was f6, to remove the pin on the queen and attack the bishop. Réti may think his attack is not looking to be as valuable as it looked, but the attack only started.
Sadly since the queen is under fire, there is no discovered check with moving the knight, so Réti moved Qh5. Black can not take the hanging bishop on e5 because then Réti can go Ng5 for mate in eight. But the threats of a discovered check are still there, so black offers a really fancy exchange (Bg4) to keep the queen at bay, and to capture the white bishop.
But with the bishop gone, there may not be enough pieces to carry out the attack. Except the rooks. A piece not used for middlegame purposes, but in this game it will be crucial to get one into the attack. So Réti goes Rxf1.
Nd5? M7. No explanation for this move.
next moves are pretty easy to spot, Qh5+, (forces king back) Kg8, Ng5!! (lets be honest that is a super easy move to find.) Nf8. Qf7+ (forcing it on the open file for the rook,) Kh8 (forced), and the game finishes with Rf4, and Réti won by resignation.
Game review
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