An Euwe Game For Every Week of Spring #3
Week #3!
Today we will see the first glimpse of Euwe's attacking abilities. The game today is from 1920 and features a young Euwe (19) against the more experienced Richard Reti. Reti spent some time in the Netherlands around 1920 and seems to have been an early influence on Euwe, teaching Euwe some hypermodern instincts and giving him a strong opponent to face. Reti regularly beat up on Euwe in their chess encounters, in the same year Reti won the Amsterdam tournament without a single loss (an event that also featured Euwe). This Amsterdam tournament also featured Tartakower and Maroczy.
In this game Euwe uses his own variation against the caro-Kann and plays in a very hypermodern fashion. It's not the most accurate game from Euwe but it isn't hard to see why he became World champion later. Curiously, Euwe only played this variation against the Caro-Kann twice and only won this one game! But it bears his name nonetheless.
First a few puzzles from the game:
White to play:
White to play:
White to play and end the game:
Now let's see the full game:
Get used to this kind of double edged attacking play because it will only continue!
I'll see you all next time!
Sources: Euwe vs Reti (1920), 1920 Amsterdam Tournament, A blog post about the Euwe - Reti Match (1920)
