One of those Hypermoderns was a player about whom we know almost nothing today...the Hungarian Gyula Breyer (April 30, 1893 - November 19, 921).
As far as I know there is only one book on him. It's Jimmy Adams' Gyula Breyer: The Chess Revolutionary that was published in 2017. You can view the book HERE and you can read it with the free Kindle app.
In 1912 Breyer won the Hungarian championship and in 1920 he finished first in Berlin ahead of Bogoljubov, Tartakower, Reti, Maroczy and Tarrasch.
Heart disease cut short his career and he died in 1921 at the age of 28.
In the following game Breyer defeats a Max Euwe against whom he had a plus score. My memory fails, but I think it was in 1959 that Dr. Euwe visited Cleveland, Ohio and I got his autograph which I still have. He wrote, "I wish you good luck with chess interest. Sincerely, Dr. M. Euwe". If you want to know how to pronounce Max Euwe check it out HERE.
Many of Breyer's games exemplify a struggle between the old-fashioned view that a strong center consists in having Pawns on the fourth rank and the modern attitude, which considers that such a center is not so strong because the Pawns can often be attacked easily. Here's an example.
Max Euwe–Gyula Breyer0–1B00ViennaVienna AUT29.05.1921Stockfish 15.1
Nimzovich Defense 1.e4 c6 Kasparov and Keene opined that the
Nimzovich is sound and offers the maverick spirit a great deal of opening
territory to explore. 2.c3 f6 A classic opening theory rule breaking move.
3.d4 e5 Alternatives are 3...d4 and 2...e6, but there is no amassed theory
on this defense and only a handful of games. 4.dxe5 xe5 5.f4 c6 6.e5 g8 7.c4 d6 Challenging white's advanced center. 8.f3 8.e3 f5 Better
was 8...Nxe5 9.e2 dxe5 10.d1 h4+ 11.f2 White stands well. Steiner,A
(2247)-Savio,A (2043) Austria 2015 8...g4 In the ancient (1946) book
Strategy and Tactics by Chernev and Reinfeld, they apparently annotated the
game based on the result and claimed that after this move white is in
difficulties because he can't play 9.exd6 because black would get good
development and the move 5.f4 has created a weakness in white's position.
Pshaw! White is better in this position. 9.0-0 9.exd6 xd6 10.e2+ e7 11.e3 f6 12.0-0-0 is equal. 9...d7 9...h6 10.e1 dxe5 11.xe5 c5+ 12.e3 xe3+ 13.xe3 0-0 White is a bit better. Mrdja,M (2368)-Kalajzic,I
(2240) Velika Gorica CRO 2012 9...dxe5 would lose! 10.xf7+ xf7 11.xe5+ e8 12.xg4 and black won't last long. 10.e1 Chernev and Reinfeld
belittled this move claiming that Euwe was no longer sure of his position and
so tries this "ingenious" attempt at introducing complications, but Breyer is
quite at home in them. Nonsense! Euwe's move is evaluated at only about a
quarter of a P worse than either 10.h3 or 10.Be3. There is nothing "ingenious"
about 10.Qe1...it threatens exd6, but that's obvious. It is true though that
Breyer is at home in complications. Engines prefer white here! 0-0-0 11.g5 11.h3 was also a good move. xf3 12.e6 e7 13.xf3 f6 14.d5 xd5 15.xd5 fxe6 16.e3 e5 17.xc6 bxc6 18.a5 White is slightly better. 11...dxe5 12.h1 Tartakower called this position very wild and mentioned 12.Bb3
as a possibility. 12.b3 d4 Better was 12...Bc5+ and 13...Nf6 13.xf7
Better than Tartakower's 13.fxe5 xc2 14.xc2 xf7 15.fxe5 White is better.
12...f6 13.f7 a5 14.xd8 This slip allows black to equalize. 14.d5 c6 15.f3 xf3 16.xh8 g4 17.e4 f5 18.a4 d4 19.xa5 b4 20.a4 xc3 21.b3 a5 22.f7 White is winning. 14...xc4 15.e4 d6 16.b4
This is the move upon which Euwe relied thinking it allows the successfull
rescue of the N by Nxb7. It does, but black now launches a dangerous attack. e7 16...xd8 favors white after 17.fxe5 The N can't move because of Qf8+
a5 18.a3 b6 19.exd6 xd6 20.b3 17.fxe5 fxe5 18.xb7 xb7 19.f8+ Ingenious, but quite faulty. 19.c4 f6 20.a6 e8 Black has a
solid position. 19...xf8 20.xf8+ d8 21.xg7 f6 22.g5 g8 White's "attack" after his 19th move has fizzled out and he is elft with a
lost position. 23.h6 23.xf6 xg5 24.xd8+ xd8 leaves white hopelessly
lost. 23...g6 24.h4 d6 This prevents 25.Ne4 25.f1 f5 26.xg4 xg4 27.xd8 As lost as white's position is, the game is NOT over. The
N on f6 is attacked and one wrong move could throw away the win. ge3
This is the only winning move! 27...fe3 28.f8 xc2 29.h4+ b7 30.f7
and not only is white back in the game, he's actually a bit better. 27...gh6 28.g4 e3 29.f8 hxg4 30.g5+ b7 31.e4 with equal chances. 28.f3 xd8 29.h3 Hoping for a gross blunder perhaps. g3 29...xg2 30.xf5 xc2 31.xe5 with a draw. 30.xg3 xg3+ Euwe resigned. 0–1
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