Saturday, March 25, 2023

Rubinstein - Rotlewi, 1910

The following game, brought to our attention by Tomasz Lissowski, was played between Akiba Rubinstein and Georg Rotlewi. Apart from being the same players as in Rubinstein's "immortal" game (Rotlwei - Rubinstein, 1907), it is interesting since it was published in a column in a Yiddish newspaper, Der Moment (9 December 1910, p. 5) - with annotations, in Yiddish, by Rubinstein himself, the editor of the newspaper's column. 

Especially interesting from a linguistic point of view is that the names of the pieces were in Hebrew letters but were transliteration of the German, or continental, system. E.g., the knight is ש - S - for "Springer," the bishop ל - L - for "laufer," etc. 


Rubinstein, Akiba – Rotlewi, Georg

Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch [D34]

Warsaw chess club championship, 1910

Source: see above

Annotations: Akiba Rubinstein

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.cxd5 exd5 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 Be7 8.0–0 Be6 9.Bg5 0–0 10.Rc1 c4 11.Ne5 Qb6 The queen attacks d4 and b2, changing places with the c6 knight to sufficiently protect the weak point d5. 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.Nxd5 Bxd5 14.Bxd5 Bxe5 If 14...Nxe5 15.dxe5 Bxe5 16.Rxc4 Bxb2 17.Qc2 with the threat of 18.Rb1. 15.dxe5 Nxe5 

16.b3! cxb3 17.Qxb3 Nc6 18.Qxb6 axb6 19.Rb1 Ra5 20.Rfd1 b5 21.Bb3 Ra7 22.Rd7 Ne5 23.Rc7 Stronger than 23. Rd5 - Rubinstein. 23...Rd8 24.Bd5 Black resigns (1-0).