FAVORITES: Reti vs Rubinstein 1925

I discovered this game in the book pictured here, which I happily came across in one of those Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood (I also found Karlsbad 1911 and Coburg 1904/Nuernberg 1906 in the very same kiosk). :)

When I first played over this game, it seemed like Rubinstein was doing very nicely indeed early on. But then Reti came up alongside and took the lead (in rather surprising fashion). And so--after a proverbial spate of pawns promoting--we arrived at a most unusual endgame indeed. :)

I could hardly believe that such an ending had actually occurred in master play...much less in a game between two of the all-time greats (of course, both of them were major guns at chess' final phase). And it further flummoxed me that White couldn't find any way to win the thing!

Incidentally, this game was played in the fifth round. Akiba eventually did win Marienbad 1925 (tying for first with Nimzovich). And poor Richard had to content himself with finishing a point and a half behind those two.