Chapter 1 — Modern Ideas in Chess: The Development of Positional Play

This is the complete first chapter of Richard Réti's Modern Ideas in Chess (1922) — all five sections, eight games, in the order the book gives them, narrated in Réti's own words. It runs through the whole of the first chapter: the combination play of Anderssen's era and the delight a player first takes in it, then why a master does not calculate his way through a quiet position at all, then Paul Morphy — the principle his games contain, the traps he declines, and the five games in which superior development is turned into an open position and a win. What you'll take away: • A chess player in his early stages, meeting the masters of that period, experiences unbounded delight in their combinations and little interest in the other parts of the game — which is how chess itself was played until the middle of the nineteenth century (§1). • The master does not calculate ten or twenty moves ahead. In an ordinary tranquil position, three moves each side already give 729 variations: in practice scarcely possible of execution, and objectless besides (§2). • Deep calculation belongs to positions that force it — a threat that can be parried only one way, an exchange that must be recaptured, a check (§2). • Morphy wrote nothing, but his games contain the basic principles for the treatment of open positions; he was less at home in close ones (§3). • Superior development increases in value in proportion as the game is more open. So the better-developed side should open the game, and the worse-developed side should keep it closed (§5). • Morphy's early pawn sacrifices serve that same end: his rooks and bishops were in play before his opponent had castled, and those pieces require open lines (§5). Chapters 0:00 §1 Combination — Anderssen–Dufresne, the Evergreen: the preparatory move, and the quiet introductory move behind the whole combination 4:57 §2 Positional Play — why the master does not calculate the tranquil position 9:31 §3 Paul Morphy — the Evans Gambit as the old school played it, a master game of the same years, and Morphy declining the bait 14:00 §4 Fourth Game in the Match, Anderssen–Morphy — the mating idea, the three traps behind Diagram V, and the attack that lands on the diagonal 20:24 §5 The Opening — Morphy–Amateur at odds of the queen's rook 22:58 Schulten–Morphy: the king's file opened, and mate in seven 24:52 Morphy–Amateur: the mistaken pawn advance and the sacrifice that opens the queen's file 25:55 Morphy–Amateur, compromised defence: development turned into a break-through Modern Ideas in Chess is in the public domain. Book adapted from the 1923 English edition. Captions available.