As mentioned previously, it's interesting to note that Rubinstein was a solid positional player, and his favorite first move was 1. d4, but when he played 1. e4 he mostly did it against opponents who play 1...e5 and his main weapon was the aggresive King's Gambit. As unnatural as it might seem, it worked out wonderfully for Akiba.

The strong master John A Curdo made a career of meeting the gambit with 2....Bc5 and did not come off too badly.

Carlsen referred to Rubinstein in a postgame at Shamkir. Asked about the death of Razuvaev, Carlsen said the gm had shown him some of his favorite Rubinstein's games some years ago.

Razuvaev and Valery Myrachvery’s <Akiba Rubinstein> is a very fine book, in Russian unfortunately.

Rubinstein vs Nimzowitsch, 1928

Indeed, PB. It was a lovely queen sacrifice.

Thanks, that's wonderful to know about! Apart from the Rubinstein book, I also have Botvinnik's Selected Games, the "Tournament of Stars [Not Named Korchnoi]," and a book about Stein. With that keyboard I can get a lot more out of them.

My best time, ever, was about 30 seconds. My average time is about 45 seconds. I've been trying to invest in a better cube (or perhaps better method), but haven't gotten the time; I've been solving a cube for nearly 5 months now. :)

I learned how to solve it and then forgot how. As my mother might say, that, and a couple of dollars, will buy me a cup of coffee.

Stollar vs A Serebrisky, 1945

Hi buddy.. I don't see anything wrong with just playing a6 beforehand, i don't know why i even thought kb8 necessary because Bb8 <followed by> a6 does the job.. It's just one of those games i don't really understand, can't go through the moves without replaying them a few times and still left wondering what the idea behind them are.. Above my pay grade :)

Yes, as you say Black could play something else with ...a6, but his position remains bad because his pieces have no active play. That's positional chess for you - if it was easy to understand we'd all be Grandmasters :)