Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Greco’s Legacy. King’s Gambit -IV-
Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634) was an extremely strong Italian chess player who excelled not only in combinations but also in positional understanding. He played chess for money against anyone who challenged him. Because of that, Greco is considered the first professional player in the history of chess.
Greco recorded some of the oldest known chess games in their entirety. Because in his games never appears the opponent’s name, historians conclude that they are in fact his constructs to demonstrate opening traps and mating patterns.
To his legacy belong to have discovered various tactical concepts and traps which Greco recorded and sold in small manuscripts. The little we know about his life comes from those manuscripts. After his death some of them appeared published in books like “The Royall Game of Chesse-Play (1656)” or “Le Jeu des Echets (1669)”. Those books contain short games, each of them demonstrating an important tactical pattern. Thanks to those books, Greco’s work reached a large audience of chess fans.
The King’s Gambit was very popular in the period after Greco’s death. We know that period as the Romantic Era of chess when games featured strong attacks against the opponent’s king and beautiful combinations.
The oldest record of the King’s Gambit is from a game played between Ruy Lopez de Segura and Giovani Leonardo Da Cutri in 1560.
Today’s post follows previous ones and brings more of Greco’s patterns in the King’s Gambit Accepted, Variation of Knight’s Gambit. Unlike previous posts, in this variation White opts for playing first his king’s knight (3.Nf3) instead of developing the bishop (3.Bc4). With 3.Nf3, White prevents early checks with Qh4+. If Black replies with 3…g5, the elementary idea is to stick to the extra pawn. 3…g5 was Black’s main response in the early years of the king’s gambit.
Successfully playing the variation with 3…g5 requires a deep knowledge of many sharp lines that experts have analyzed over the years. Sometimes a slight slip is enough to lose the game.
If you enjoyed these examples about the King’s Gambit, stay tuned because this series will follow in future posts.
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