Réti's Eleven-Move Mate

The Réti–Tartakower game from Vienna in 1910 is the most famous chess miniature of the twentieth century. The two players — both later grandmasters and chess theoreticians — sat down for a casual game at the Vienna Chess Club. Eleven moves later it was over, with Réti’s bishop delivering mate on d8.

The opening was a Caro-Kann Defense. Tartakower played the natural 4…Nf6, attacking the e4-knight. Réti responded with 5.Qd3 — quiet, not the main line — and Tartakower aimed for the central break 5…e5. After 6.dxe5 Qa5+ Black wins back the pawn, and Réti developed with 7.Bd2 Qxe5 8.O-O-O. The position looks roughly level.

Tartakower’s 8…Nxe4 was the losing move. He thought that capturing on e4 would simply gain a piece, expecting the queen to recapture. Réti had seen further. He played the queen sacrifice 9.Qd8+!!. After 9…Kxd8 10.Bg5+ Kc7 11.Bd8# the bishop on d8 delivers mate, supported by the rook on d1 down the d-file.

The geometry

The mate works because the rook on d1 has been on the d-file the whole game (after castling queenside). The bishop on d8 covers the king’s only escape square (c7) along the diagonal a5-d8. After the queen capture on move 9, the king is forced to the only square available, and the discovered check from the bishop on g5 forces it again. Eleven moves, three black pieces still on their starting squares, one of the cleanest mating combinations ever recorded.

Tartakower wrote about the game in his later book My Best Games of Chess, attributing the loss to “Réti’s gift for finding the move that should not work, but does.” He also noted that he had been so confident in his own position that he barely looked at 9.Qd8+ before it was played — a confession of carelessness that has become part of the game’s legend.