born May 28, 1889, Pezinok, Hungary

died June 6, 1929, Prague, Czechoslovakia 【now Czech Republic】

Réti was an exception among grandmasters, being keenly interested in composing chess problems and studies (chess). His start in chess, however, was so inauspicious that he came in last in a 1908 tournament in Vienna, but by 1912 he was recognized as a brilliant player. In 1920 he switched from playing to writing, and, with his Modern Ideas in Chess (1923) and his columns, he became 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.