LCCC Meets Again June 6, 2022, at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton, Michigan, located in the Green Oaks Shopping Plaza. We start at 4pm and go until 9 or 10pm. It is just casual chess so feel free to stop by for a game or two....or three.
Now for Part II on the special but tragic life of Akiba Rubinstein:
Among the millions who fell victim to the Great War (World War I) was Akiba Rubinstein's (left) chess genius. The post-war Grandmaster was not the same chess hero of 1914, and who was to contest Lasker for the World Chess Championship soon.
Rubinstein lost that supreme confidence in himself that is the necessary ingredient in all champions of any endeavor. He suffered now from an inferiority complex, deeming himself of being non-essential to the world. He no longer felt deserving of being a participant in the great chess tournaments after WW1. He even stated he felt unwelcome. He had always been modest, shy, retiring and self-degrading of his own talents, but now it was to the point of being a mental abnormality. More on that later.
There is little doubt that Rubinstein has added more to chess theory and technique than any Grandmaster at this time in history since Steinitz. The standard defense he developed to the Ruy Lopez opening is still in use today, banishing several variations for White to the sidelines for grandmaster play.
In the Queen's Gambit Declined, it was Rubinstein who perfected the fianchetto for the King's bishop against the Tarrasch Defense that gave him resounding victories over Lasker (1909) and Capablanca (1911).
He made improvements to opening theory for both sides of the board in many Queen Pawn openings, the Blumenfeld Counter-Attack, and the Sicilian Defense.
In the opinion of many of the great chess players of this time, only Capablanca was playing at a greater level of perfection when Rubinstein was at his peak. But where Capablanca improved the theory of others to new levels of excellence, Rubinstein was creating new theory. Current GM's site that most modern openings today started with Rubinstein.
And Rubinstein's genius did not stop at the opening or the middle game. World Champion Emanuel Lasker said that Rubinstein played every move looking at the endgame. And it was debated then, as it still is today by chess snobs, as to who was the greatest endgame player at that time - Rubinstein or Capablanca?
Dr. Jacques Hannak, who wrote books on both Lasker and Rubinstein stated in the 1920's that after WWI, "Rubinstein's character is too noble for the rough and tumble life. So concerned about his opponent being distracted, that as a matter of principle, Rubinstein would leave the board while his opponent thought. He would only return after his opponent moved. Naturally, with all that time lost for his own study of the game, caused Rubinstein a stunning number of upset losses."
Actually, this was the start of the end for Akiba Rubinstein, the chess player. In 1932, he withdrew from tournament play siting severe anthropophobia. That is a fear of social gatherings. In 1930 and 1931 it was said that Rubinstein would make a move and hide in a corner or behind curtains awaiting his opponent's next move.
Rubinstein stayed in Poland during WWI. There is no solid history as to where or how Akiba Rubinstein (a Jew) survived during WWII during the 1940's. Most believe he spent it in a sanatorium in Belgium. It is alleged that when the Nazis arrived there, they asked Rubinstein if he would like to work for the Nazis and help them with their war effort. The story is, Rubinstein rose from his bed, stood at attention and said, "I would be delighted to." The officer in charge stated, "He must really be crazy," and they left him there.
It is believed that schizophrenia took over Rubinstein's mind because of or during WW1, making Akiba Rubinstein one of the greatest chess players never becoming the World Chess Champion. He spent the last 29 years of his life either at the homes of family members or in sanatoriums.
