Akiba Rubinstein

Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was born in Stawiski, Congress Poland, to a Jewish family. He was the youngest of 12 children,[lower-alpha 1] but only one sister survived to adulthood.[1][4][5] Rubinstein learned to play chess at the relatively late age of 14, and his family had planned for him to become a rabbi.[6] He trained with and played against the strong master Gersz Salwe in Łódź and in 1903, after finishing fifth in a tournament in Kyiv, 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 the All-Russian Masters' tournament, and shared first at Saint Petersburg. In 1912 he had a record string of wins, finishing first in five consecutive major tournaments: San Sebastián, Pöstyén, Breslau, Warsaw and Vilna (All-Russian Masters' tournament), although none of these events included Lasker or Capablanca.[7] Some sources believe that he was stronger than World Champion Emanuel Lasker at this time.[8] Ratings from Chessmetrics support this conclusion, placing him as world No. 1 between mid-1912 and mid-1914.[9]

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.[10][11] 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.[12]

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. 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 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 the 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. 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 Łódź. 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.

Rubinstein in simultaneous chess exhibition, Tel Aviv, 1931

After 1932. he withdrew from tournament play as his noted anthropophobia showed traces of schizophrenia during a mental health breakdown.[13] 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.[14] Regardless, his former strength was recognized by FIDE when he was one of 27 players awarded the inaugural Grandmaster title in 1950.[15]

It is not clear how Rubinstein, who was Jewish, survived World War II in Nazi-occupied Belgium. Chess historian Edward Winter has written on the subject.[16] Citing a number of Rubinstein's peers in the chess world and people who were close to him, it seems that Rubinstein spent the war in a sanatorium. He cites a story about Rubinstein that has, since the war, been published in various books and articles, with varying details: "Nazi investigators once descended on the place and asked Rubinstein, "Are you happy here?" "Not at all", Rubinstein replied. "Would you prefer to go to Germany and work for the Wehrmacht?" "I'd be delighted to", Rubinstein replied. "Then he really must be barmy", the Nazis decided", but Winter quotes Rubinstein's biographers as saying "Most stories concerning Rubinstein are at best half truths, which have become so embellished over time that they bear little resemblance to what actually transpired", before adding "That is indisputable."[16]

Rubinstein was also a well-known coffee drinker, and was known to consume the hot beverage in large quantities before important matches. Unlike many other top grandmasters, he left no literary legacy, which has been attributed to his mental health problems. He spent the last 29 years of his life living at home with his family and in a sanatorium because of his severe mental illness. Rubinstein is a tragic, mentally ill character in the novel The Lüneburg Variation about chess masters, obsession and revenge, by Italian writer Paolo Maurensig. However, while in the mental clinic Rubinstein was visited by Alberic O'Kelly on a number of occasions and he provided the latter with some chess guidance.