I Don’t Like Reti’s Games

     I don’t know why. I don’t like Nimzovich’s games either. Reshevsky, Botvinnik, Tartakower, Nezhmetdinov…I like their games, so why not Reti and Nimzovich? I don’t know. I like bread, all kinds of bread, but detest pasta. I like fruit, but not apples. I’m just funny about some things, I guess.
     Richard Réti (28 May 1889– 6 June 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovak player, author, and endgame study composer. His father was a physician in the the Austrian military and his older brother, Rudolph, was a noted pianist, musical theorist, and composer. Réti studied mathematics at Vienna. He was one of the top players in the world during the 1910s and 1920s at the start of his career he was a combinative, classical player, favoring openings like the King’s Gambit, but after WW1 he changed and became a proponent of the hypermodern school. Réti died on 6 June 1929 in Prague of scarlet fever and his ashes are buried in the grave of hs father, Dr. Samuel Réti, in the Jewish section of Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna.

     I probably haven’t played over a half dozen of Reti’s games, but here is one that I liked. It shows a slight pressure gradually becoming stronger and stronger until Reti is able to cut loose a winning combination.