RETI, RICHARD

born May 28, 1889, Pezinok, Hung. died June 6, 1929, Prague, Czech. [now Czech Republic] Hungarian chess master, writer, and theoretician who was one of the chief exponents of the Hypermodern school. White to play and draw, a chess composition by Richard Rti (c. 1922) Rti was an exception among grandmasters, being keenly interested in composing chess problems and studies. His start in chess in Vienna, however, was so inauspicious that he came in last in a 1908 tournament, but by 1912 he was recognized as a brilliant player. In 1920 he switched from playing to writing and became, with his Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and his columns, a revered writer. Returning to the board, he won the brilliancy prize in New York in 1924, awarded for the most brilliant game in the tournament of that year. His Die Meister des Schachbretts (1930; Masters of the Chessboard) was published posthumously.