Reti Study
A famous king-and-pawn endgame study demonstrating how a king can simultaneously approach two distant targets along a diagonal path.
The study shows a seemingly hopeless defending king catching up to a far-advanced enemy pawn while also supporting its own pawn's promotion, illustrating the counterintuitive power of diagonal king movement in the endgame.
Etymology
The study is named after Richard Reti (28 May 1889 - 6 June 1929), an Austro-Hungarian and later Czechoslovak grandmaster, hypermodern theoretician and endgame composer. He published the study in 1921, in Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten according to the study's Wikipedia article, with the Wikipedia biography giving the appearance in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung on 4 December 1921. Its point is that a king can pursue two objectives at once by moving diagonally, so that an apparently hopeless race against a passed pawn is drawn. The idea is also called the Reti Maneuver or Reti's Idea, and the Soviet study specialist Abram Gurvich named the underlying theme The Hunt of Two Hares.
First documented: 1921 — Published 1921; Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten (per the study article) and Ostrauer Morgenzeitung, 4 December 1921 (per the Reti biography)
Translations
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