Richard Réti- The Incomparable Endgame Magician

Richard Réti was one of the best chess players in his prime. His Brilliant endgame studies changed the whole dynamic of the game, as he introduced a whole new geometry into the game of chess, and he introduced new modern ideas into openings. He was easily one of the top players of the 1910 era, and today we will dive deep into the life of Richard Réti, and see what made him the endgame genius that he once was. 

Early Life

Richard Selig Réti was born in Bazin, Austria-Hungary (now called Pezinok, Slovakia) He had an older brother named Rudolph. Rudolph and his father would often play chess, as Réti would just simply observe their gameplay. When Réti was six, he asked if he could take on his father at a game of chess. His father indignantly rejected the idea of Réti playing chess. But soon after the young player started, his request was granted. He beat his father twice in a row. His secret? Réti just said he had watched them play and picked up on their mistakes. This was the first time he was introduced to the game of chess.

Richard Réti began to see the many wonders of chess, so he had submitted a problem into a chess article, and the next year as a 13-year-old boy had been granted the huge honor of meeting the chess legend Carl Schlechter. Carl recognized Rétis talent and help Réti get into one of the top Vietnamese chess clubs at the time. This ignited Réti's long-burning passion for chess.

As Réti had started to make the headlines, he had formed a strong friendship with the future Hungarian world champion, Gyula Breyer. Gyula had ultimately become a coach to Réti, and whatever Gyula did, Réti's official rating improved dramatically. Réti had plenty of success during his local tournaments in Vienna, and he came in fourth at a kings gambit accepted themed tournament in Abbazia in 1912 Réti played such a great game there, he had a whole variation named after that game!

But then, not long after the tournament, World War 1 had just begun. That suspended International chess indefinitely. But strangely, It seemed to have a positive effect on Réti's grind to the top.

Rising To The Top

1918

Réti was playing a lot and lots of tournaments, he even won a few, most famously the Kassa Tournament with some pretty big names as his competition. That didn't matter to Réti. He pulled out on top. But even though his strength was quite high for Réti, he still treated chess as a pastime. His focus on life was directed at completing his doctoral thesis in mathematics so he could find a high-paying and successful job.

But then. Réti lost his document! that was his life's work and now it was gone!  that drove him to the brink of suicide. All he had to show in his life was his chess, so he started to consider chess as a personal career. Réti became actively engaged in his chess career. As time went on, his skill level escalated. As there were no online chess platforms back then, the only way to play somebody was using a real board at tournaments. So that is exactly what Réti did. Réti won at Rotterdam 1919, Vienna 190, Amsterdam, 1920, Gothenburg, 1920, and his most famous win at the first-class tournament with an astonishing 9.5/13 points. He had topped many big names at the time including Mieses, Rubinstein, Bogoljubov, Tarash, and even Aron Nimzowitsch. Réti was playing the best chess of his life, and was comfortably at his peak, as he was a threat to any player who crossed paths with Réti.

As is famously known as a top player at this time, Réti started to develop a new game style that other high-level chess masters would look down on Réti for. He would start by playing hypermodern and innovative openings. They showed that you can attack the king through the center. These types of openings that Réti discovered lead to more a long-lasting positional advantage. Wanna see what I mean? check out this masterpiece played by Richard Réti and George Thomas.

Réti took a little break from his chess journey at this point, as he gradually became less and less active as a player. Why? because according to Harry Golombek, "Had fallen victim to a disease often fatal to chess masters- He had become a chess journalist"

Réti was working for Austrian and German newspapers, as he regularly provided chess-related content. But on top of that, he wrote a book called Modern Ideas In Chess in 1921. That same year, he had also started to study endgames. He had composed some of the greatest endgame studies in chess history, as he had introduced the idea of new geometry.

See the full study here

Réti would also spend his spare time as a chief proponent of the hypermodernism school of chess, in which he would examine and study all of the hypermodern openings. Still, this program took a while to take off as people still would not respect the hypermodern principles of these studies. It took a while for the top player to realize, that his ideas were not crazy but in fact, genius!

In 1925, Réti went to Brazil for an extended stay. When he was there he set the world record (at the time) for playing twenty-nine simultaneous blindfolded games. He had gotten 21 wins, six draws, and two losses. When news of this got out into the chess universe, it had exploded in popularity. Alexander Alekhine had dubbed him and Réti the best blindfold chess players in the world. But when Réti returned to Europe, his play was not the same, as a result of being an active journalist.

Return To The Top

Richard Réti had regained his skills in 1924, the same year as the Great New York Chess Tournament, all the top chess stars would be there, but Réti would take no notice of them. He was unbeatable at this tournament.

He had ended current world champion Jose Raul  Capablanca's eight-year win streak,

He had defeated future world champion Alexander Alekhine 

and he had defeated Efim Bogoljubov, who later became the first FIDE world champion

And you know what? Réti's opening studies paid off in the end because in two of those games that he won he had deployed the opening that he had created

Then in 1928, he did even better by placing first place in both Vienna and Giessen. After those amazing wins, Réti was headed to Scandinavia so he could have a tour of simultaneous displays in Sweden and Norway. After that, Réti would play his last chess tournament in Stockholm. After retiring from tournaments, Réti would work on his next book Masters of the chessboard, that book was never finished, but it was published in 1933.

A little after a week on Réti's 40th birthday, he had died of scarlet fever.

Long Lasting Legacy

Richard Réti was no doubt one of the best chess players of all time, which is quite an accomplishment with all the new grandmasters out there. it is quite crazy, that Réti only really started to play chess seriously around when he was 30 years old. Masters now start taking chess seriously when they are 6 or 5, so for Réti to take in this much chess knowledge at so little amount of time, it really is just astonishing.

Even though he had never claimed a world championship title,  he had manuscripted two chess books, Influenced and changed the minds of thousands of European chess players, revolutionized the opening stages of the game, he had helped introduce the world to hypermodern ideas in chess, and left behind many beautiful endgame studies for future chess masters to study.

So what do you think about Richard Réti? could he have become the world champion if he had not died, or if he started to make chess his life before his document got destroyed? what are your thoughts about Réti?