Capablanca's Favorite Rubinstein Masterpiece? - Best Of The 1910s - Rubinstein vs. Schlechter, 1912
Akiba Rubinstein may have been the best player in the world in the late 1900s and early 1910s prior to World War I. While his mental health and chess play deteriorated far too early in his life, he left behind a tremendous legacy of tournament successes and incredibly beautiful positional and tactical masterpieces. To my mind, Rubinstein played more brilliancies from 1905-1915 than anyone else in the world, and it's not even close. Suffice to say that I won't be surprising anyone with my #1 game from the 1900s.
My pick for this list may be surprising as Rubinstein also had fine wins over Lasker and Capablanca in the decade, but I find his win against Carl Schlechter to be one of the most beautiful, instructive, and harmonious victories. The future world champion, Jose Capablanca, had this to say about the game: "There are no doubt many people whose attention is not attracted by this game; for my part, I confess that there are few games that have so impressed me. To my mind, it is a complete masterpiece, a monument of magnificent precision. For 38 moves, the great Russian expert always played the exact move, the strongest! The game is a classic example, always to be conserved, of how chess should be played."
Top 10 Games of the 1910s
- #1: ????
- #2: ????
- #3: ????
- #4: ????
- #5: Schlechter vs. Rubinstein, 1912
- #6: Janowski vs. Chajes, 1916
- #7: Spielmann vs. Rubinastein, 1911
- #8: Reti vs. Flamberg, 1912
- #9: Rubinstein vs. Vidmar, 1918
- #10: Nimzowitsch vs. Baron Ungern-Sternberg, 1910
- See also: Top 10 of the 1920s, Top 10 of the 1930s, Top 10 of the 1940s, Top 10 of the 1950s, Top 10 of the 1960s, Top 10 of the 1970s, Top 10 of the 1980s, Top 10 of the 1990s, Top 10 of the 2000s, and Top 10 of the 2010s
The game opens with a Semi-Tarrasch which resembles a Gruenfeld. In a later decade, we covered a masterpiece in which White's king proved unsafe in the center in a similar structure and was masterfully hunted down: Portisch vs. Pinter, 1984. This game demonstrates the opposite case. Schlechter too quickly exchanges the queens to pull White's king into the center. He has no pieces to attack it and allow Rubinstein a delightful endgame with the strong center. Rubinstein perfectly, pokes, prods, and squeezes the position, ever improving his pieces without allowing a sniff of counterplay. Ultimately, it his invading king that poetically finishes the job.
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I'm the Head of Community for Chess.com. I earned the National Master title in 2012, and in 2014, I returned to my home state of South Carolina to start Strategery: Chess and Games. In late 2015, I began working for Chess.com and haven't looked back since.
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