Gyula Breyer

Gyula ("Julius") Breyer (30 April 1893 Budapest – 9 November 1921) was a Hungarian chess player and 1912 Hungarian national champion.

Chess career

In 1912 Breyer won the Hungarian championship in Temesvar. In a 1920 tournament in Berlin he finished first (+6 −2 =1) ahead of Bogoljubov, Tartakower, Réti, Maróczy, and Tarrasch. Breyer had a plus record against Max Euwe (later world champion).

In 1921 Breyer set a new blindfold chess record by playing 25 games simultaneously. He also edited Szellemi Sport, a magazine devoted to chess puzzles, and composed at least one brilliant retrograde analysis study.

Heart disease cut short Breyer's promising chess career. He died in 1921 at the age of 28 in Bratislava. He was buried in Bratislava and after exhumation in 1987, was reburied in the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest.

Legacy

Breyer was a leading pioneer of the hypermodern school of chess theory, which favoured controlling the centre with pressure from the flanks. He is noted for the maxim "after the first move 1.e4 White's game is in the last throes", although Breyer himself did not abandon that move. He was a friend of Richard Réti and an inspiration to other players.