Masterclass

 Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein (1 December 1880 –

14 March 1961) was a Polish
chess grandmaster who is considered to have been
one of the strongest players never to have
become World Chess Champion.[1]
 In Rubinstein's youth, he defeated top players such
as José Raúl Capablanca and Carl Schlechter and
was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel
Lasker for the World Chess Championship in 1914,
but it was cancelled due to the outbreak of World
War I. He was unable to re-create the same form
after the war, and his later life was plagued by
mental illness.
 Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was born on 1 December 1880
in Stawiski, Congress Poland to a Jewish family. He had several siblings,
but only one sister survived to adulthood.[2][3] Rubinstein learned to play
chess at the relatively late age of 16, and his family had planned for him
to become a rabbi.[4] He trained with and played against the strong
master Gersz Salwe in Łódź and in 1903, after finishing fifth in a
tournament in Kiev, Rubinstein decided to abandon his rabbinical studies
and devote himself entirely to chess.
 Between 1907 and 1912, Rubinstein established himself as one of the
strongest players in the world. In 1907, he won the Carlsbad tournament
and shared first at St. Petersburg. In 1912 he had a record string of wins,
finishing first in five consecutive major tournaments: San
Sebastian, Pistyan, Breslau, Warsaw and Vilnius, although none of these
events included Lasker or Capablanca.[5] Some sources believe that he
was stronger than World Champion Emanuel Lasker at this
time.[6] Ratings from Chessmetrics support this conclusion, placing him as
world No. 1 between mid-1912 and mid-1914.[7]
 During the first decade of the 20th century, the playing field for
competitive chess was relatively thin. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first
universally recognized world champion, died in 1900 after having been
largely retired from chess for several years, Russian master Mikhail
 Chigorin was nearing the end of his life, while American master Frank
Marshall lived on the other side of the Atlantic far from the center of chess activity
in Europe. Another promising American master, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, had died
in 1906 at just 33. In the pre-FIDE era, the reigning world champion handpicked his
challenger, and Emanuel Lasker demanded a high sum of money that Rubinstein
could not produce. In the St. Petersburg tournament in 1909, he had tied with
Lasker and won his individual encounter with him.[8] However, he had a poor
showing at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, not placing in the top five. A match
with Lasker was arranged for October 1914, but it did not take place because of the
outbreak of World War I.[9]
 Rubinstein's peak as a player is generally considered to have been between 1907
and 1914. During World War I, he was confined to Poland, although he played in a
few organized chess events there, and traveled to Berlin in early 1918 for a
tournament. His playing after the war never regained the same consistency as it
had pre-1914, although he remained quite strong through the 1920s. He and his
family moved to Sweden following the Armistice in November 1918, where they
stayed until 1922, and then moved to Germany. Rubinstein won at Vienna in 1922,
ahead of future World Champion Alexander Alekhine, and was the leader of the
Polish team that won the 1930 Chess Olympiad at Hamburg with a record of
thirteen wins and four draws. He also he won an Olympic silver at the 1931 Chess
Olympiad, again leading the Polish team.
 Rubinstein came in fourth place in the London 1922 tournament, after which new
world champion Jose Raul Capablanca offered to play him in a match if he could
 raise the money, which once again he was unable to do. At Hastings 1922, he came
in second place, followed by a fifth place finish at Teplitz-Schönau late in the year,
and then won in Vienna brilliantly. This triumph however was soured when
Austrian border guards impounded most of the prize money he had won.
Rubinstein closed out 1922 with another appearance at Hastings, which he won,
but his tournament record during 1923 was disappointing as he came in just
twelfth place at Carlsbad and tenth at Maehrisch-Ostrau.
 His first tournament of 1924, at Meran, saw him come in third. He attempted to
participate in the New York tournament that spring, but was excluded from the
event due to a limited number of available slots, all of which were filled, and in
any case former world champion Lasker dominated the event by a large margin.
Rubinstein's 1925 tournament record was reasonably good, but his year-end
appearance in Moscow saw him come in 14th. His record in 1926 was fair but not
outstanding. That year, the Rubinstein family moved to Belgium permanently.
 In 1927, Rubinstein visited his birthplace in Poland, where he won the Polish
Championship in Lodz. He embarked on an exhibition tour of the United States in
early 1928; although a match with reigning US chess champion Frank Marshall was
proposed along with an international tournament, it never materialized. He tied
third with Max Euwe at Bad Kissingen and then delivered a poor performance in
Berlin. Rubinstein had his best post-WWI showing during 1929, when he
dominated the Ramsgate tournament in Britain and had excellent showings at
Carlsbad and Budapest. He won Rogaška-Slatina.
 As the 1930s started, Rubinstein contested the San Remo tournament, coming in
 fourth. He played well in a few Belgian events that year, and then
third place at Scarborough. His performance at Liege was weak,
possibly due to exhaustion. He skipped Bled 1931 despite an
invitation, played well at Antwerp, but came in dead last at
Rotterdam. This was the last major chess event he participated in.
 After 1932 he withdrew from tournament play as his
noted anthropophobia showed traces of schizophrenia during a
mental breakdown.[10] In one period, after making a chess move he
would go and hide in the corner of the tournament hall while
awaiting his opponent's reply.[11] Regardless, his former strength
was recognized by FIDE when he was one of 27 players awarded
the inaugural Grandmaster title in 1950.[12] Unlike many other
grandmasters, he left behind no literary legacy, which may be
attributed to his mental problems. He spent the last 29 years of his
life suffering from severe mental illness, living at various times at
home with his family and in a sanatorium. It is not clear how the
Jewish grandmaster survived World War II in German-occupied
Belgium.
 He was one of the earliest chess players to take
the endgame into account when choosing and playing
the opening. He was exceptionally talented in the
endgame, particularly in rook endings, where he broke
new ground in knowledge. Jeremy Silman ranked him
as one of the five best endgame players of all time, and
a master of rook endgames.[13]
 He originated the Rubinstein System against
the Tarrasch Defense variation of the Queen's Gambit
Declined: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nc3
Nc6 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 (Rubinstein–Tarrasch, 1912). He is
also credited with inventing the Meran Variation,
which stems from the Queen's Gambit Declined but
reaches a position of the Queen's Gambit
Accepted with an extra move for Black.
 Many opening variations are named for him. According to Grandmaster Boris Gelfand,
"Most of the modern openings are based on Rubinstein."[14] The "Rubinstein Attack"
often refers to 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 0-0 6.Nf3 Nbd7 7.Qc2. The
Rubinstein Variation of the French Defence arises after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 (or 3.Nd2)
dxe4 4.Nxe4. Apart from 4.Qc2, the Rubinstein Variation of the Nimzo-Indian:[15] 1.d4
Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3. There are also the Rubinstein Variation of the Four Knights
Game, which arises after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Nd4, and the Rubinstein
Variation of the Symmetrical English, 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Nc7, a
complex system that is very popular at the grandmaster level.
 The Rubinstein Trap, an opening trap in the Queen's Gambit Declined that loses at least
a pawn for Black, is named for him because he fell into it twice. One version of it runs
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 0-0 7.Nf3 Nbd7 8.Bd3 c6 10.0-0 Re8
11.Rc1 h6 12. Bf4 Nh5? 13. Nxd5! Now 13...cxd5?? is met by 14.Bc7, winning the queen,
while 13...Nxf4 14.Nxf4 leaves White a pawn ahead.
 The Rubinstein Memorial tournament in his honor has been held annually since 1963
in Polanica Zdrój, with a glittering list of top-flight winners. Boris Gelfand has named
Rubinstein as his favourite player,[14] and once said, "what I like in chess ... comes from
Akiba."[16]