Chapter 4, Part I — Modern Ideas in Chess: Rubinstein

This is the first part of the fourth chapter of Richard Réti's Modern Ideas in Chess (1922): the four sections on the young men of storm and stress, Akiba Rubinstein and one of his games, and an old question about chess, in the order the book gives them, narrated in Réti's own words. At the turn of the century chess had fallen into stagnation, with the same masters taking the first prizes and short draws without a fight. From Ostend 1906 a group of younger masters played for lively attack, and among them came Rubinstein, who was not of them but brought the scientific style to its highest artistic perfection. What you'll take away: • Why the period itself is easier to recognise than its players, and how the men of storm and stress broke out of it through their choice of openings (§22). • Rubinstein as the intellectual wrestler: the one and only move for every position, games like a great structure from which not one stone may be shifted (§23). • Development in close positions: pieces placed not to be effective at once but for the break-through to come, as with the Bishop to g2 in the French game (§23). • Why no position is ever quite open or quite close, and why principles made for pure types can conflict (§23). • Rubinstein against Lasker: pressure on the c-file, the isolated pawn at d5, and taking it with fear and trembling in the face of an attack that looks irresistible (§24). • Is chess a game, a science or an art? Réti's answer, from the Arabs and Philidor to the devotion in Rubinstein's games (§25). Chapters 0:00 §22 The men of storm and stress — stagnation, Ostend 1906, and new openings 3:35 §23 Akiba Rubinstein — the ascetic artist, and development in close positions 9:54 §24 Rubinstein–Lasker — the pawn at d5, the attack, and the miracle 14:55 §25 An old question — what is chess? Modern Ideas in Chess is in the public domain. Book adapted from the 1923 English edition. Captions available.