Background
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.
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.
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 (1e4 e5 2f4).
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 (1Nf3 d5 2c4) is named after him.
Réti was also a notable composer of endgame studies.
In 1925 Réti set a world record for blindfold chess with 29 games played simultaneously. His writings have become classics of chess literature. Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and Masters of the Chess Board (1933) are studied today.
Réti died on 6 June 1929 in Prague of scarlet fever.
His ashes are buried in the grave of Réti"s father Doctor Samuel Réti in the Jewish section of Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna, in Section T1, Group 51, Row 5, Grave 34. Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram.
lieutenant was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. lieutenant seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king.
The idea of the solution is to move the king to advance on both pawns at the same time using specific properties of the chess geometry.
1. Kg7! h4 2. Kf6 Kb6
or 2..h3 3.Ke7 and the white king can support its own pawn
3. Ke5!! and now the white king comes just in time to the white pawn, or catches the black one
3.. h3 4.
Kd6
and draws
Réti vs Akiba Rubinstein, Karlsbad 1923, King"s Indian Attack (A11), 1-0 A model game for Réti-type opening.
Réti vs Jose Raul Capablanca, New York 1924, English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. (A15), 1-0 The famous victory over Capablanca. A collection of his games was published as Reti"s Games of Chess, annotated by H. Golombek, republished by Dover (1974).