Akiba Rubinstein was born on December 12, 1882 in Stawisk, Poland. Just a few weeks before his birth, his father had died leaving his wife in poverty with twelve children. His grand parents decided to look after the young Akiba and then tried to shape his future as a teacher of the Talmud and a student of Hebrew, as his father and other forebears had been. Consequently his initial education was to be undertaken in Jewish community schools and then in a higher academy of religious instruction.

During the time he spent in the academy, he was introduced to and became fascinated in chess and this became an over-whelming passion of his life, much to his mother’s and grand parent’s chagrin. A religious career was forgotten and the world was to see and marvel at a player of great talent.

Unfortunately Akiba had a nervous disorder known as anthropophobia being a fear of people and society. This proved to be an extremely difficult disability and he suffered with the problems all his life.

When aged nineteen, Rubinstein discovered that George Salwe – a champion who had played against the greatest of the day – lived in nearby Lodz. He did not hesitate, and moving to Lodz he eked out a living whilst playing against some of the strongest chess players in Poland. Eventually he had the temerity to challenge Salwe himself. They played a match which finished in deadlock at 5:5. A second deciding match was played that Akiba won by 5:3. Rubinstein had become the champion of Poland and as an acknowledged master, he now received invitations to international tournaments.

The first of these was at Kiev where he finished in fifth place. In 1905 he gained further international recognition by sharing third place with Duras at a Hauptturnier in Bremen.

This heralded the start of a magnificent trail to reach a group of the strongest players in the world. In 1905 he took part in a tournament at Ostende and finished 3^rd ahead of Bernstein, Teichman, Marshall and Janowski behind Schlechter and Maroczy. The following year he once more played in Ostende and this time shared first place well ahead of 28 players. Later in the same year he won the Karlsbad tournament outright and followed this in 1909 by sharing first place with Lasker at St. Petersburg. In their individual encounter, Rubinstein put Lasker to the sword (see the games following) and it was probably this game that made Lasker very wary of playing a world championship match against Rubinstein. Although Rubinstein seemed to be the natural contender for the championship, Lasker played Shlechter and just succeeded in drawing the match.

Rubinstein had yet to reach his purple patch which occurred in 1912 during which in twelve months he won first prizes at San Sebastian, Pistyan, Breslau, Warsaw and Vilna. A truly amazing performance.

Following a relative disappointment at St. Petersburg 1914, when he did not reach the finals, the First World War broke out, and this was to mark an extreme change in both the health and results of Rubinstein. He never fully recovered the form he had enjoyed prior to the war, but he did achieve reasonable performances for the next fifteen years. He became increasingly reclusive and his health deteriorated even more harshly.

After 1932 he never appeared again in a tournament and probably because of his infirmity he was left alone by the Nazis in the Second World War. Although he spent considerable time in a sanatorium, he died in the midst of his family in Belgium in 1961.

Rubinstein’s chess heritage is still very evident today. He was the one player of his era who considered the end game in his choice of openings. There are many variations that bear his name.

He originated the Rubinstein System against the Tarrasch Defence variation of The Queen's Gambit Declined 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6 (Rubinstein - Tarrasch, 1912). He is also credited with inventing the Meran Variation, which stems from the Queen's Gambit Declined but reaches a position of the Queen's Gambit Accepted with Black one move ahead.

Today, he certainly has no shortage of lines named for him. The "Rubinstein Attack" often refers to 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Be7 5 e3 0-0 6 Nf3 Nbd7 7 Qc2. The Rubinstein variation of the French defence arises after 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 (or 3 Nd2) dxe4 4 Nxe4. The Rubinstein variation of the Nimzo-Indian is the most popular line of the Nimzo: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3.