Learn from Greco

Greco,Gioachino -- Greco's Pupil [C36]
Model Game, 1620


1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5

This game is the oldest one in the ChessBase database with this move. Of course, there are very few games before Greco's, so that is no surprise. Nonetheless, there are two games in said database with White's second move, showing that the King's Gambit is indeed a very old opening. The next two with 2...d5 were played in 1837 by Baron Tassilo Heydebrand von der Lasa, once as White and once as Black. Those two games deviate from this one on White's fifth move.

3.exd5 Qxd5

The first important lesson that a novice chess player might gain from study of this Greco game is the danger of bringing the queen out too early. White gains time kicking the queen around. In ChessBase's PowerBook, which cuts out old games and games between weak players, there is only one instance of 3...Qxd5. White won in 17 moves. See comments at move 5.

3...e4

Angelo Lewis (Professor Hoffman) classes this Greco game as King's Gambit declined, offering 3...e4 as an improvement, which he calls the Falkbeer Counter-Gambit. The Oxford Companion to Chess gives 2...d5 as the Falkbeer, and 3...e4 4. Bb5+ as the Nimzowitsch variation. There are other named variations proceeding after 3...e4. Falkbeer's loss to Anderssen in 1851 is the oldest in the database with this move. Howard Staunton also played the move in 1851, winning with Black.

3...exf4 is more popular among masters today.

4.Nc3 Qe6

Black threatens a discovered check that wins a pawn.

5.Nf3

Greco is willing to sacrifice the pawn for rapid mobilization. Who said that Paul Morphy was the first chess player to understand this idea?

5.fxe5 was played both by and against the Baron 5...Qxe5+ 6.Be2 Bd6 and the Baron won with Black in 52 moves (6...Bg4 and the Baron won with White in eighteen moves.

5...exf4+

White to move

6.Kf2

Whose king is more vulnerable?

6.Be2 would allow White to castle.

6...Bc5+

The temptation to check the opponent whenever possible is the cause of a great many positional errors that are routine in the games of beginning players. Perhaps this tendency could serve as the definition of a beginner: no matter how long you have played chess, if you play a move that checks the opponent without also having a second purpose, then you are a beginner.

6...Nf6 threatens Ng4+ 7.Bb5+ (7.d4) 7...Bd7 8.Re1 Ng4+ 9.Kg1
6...Be7 might be best.

7.d4

White blocks the check, attacks Black's pawn on f4, and drives the bishop back.

7...Bd6

Black moves the bishop to safety and defends the attacked pawn.

White to move

This position is part of my standard tactics set for young players.

8.Bb5+

This check has a second purpose: now the rook can move to e1, pinning the queen.

8...Kd8

Moving the king to get out of check is not required. Often, as in this instance, it is possible to block the check. Sometimes the checking piece can be captured.

8...Kf8 is presented as the move in this game in the ChessBase database. Francis Beale's collection of Greco games offers both Kd8 and Kf8 with the same concluding moves. Angelo Lewis also offers both.;

8...c6 9.Re1 Qxe1+ (9...Be5 10.Rxe5) 10.Qxe1+ Ne7 11.Bd3

9.Re1 Qf5

9...Qxe1+ 10.Qxe1 c6 11.Bd3

10.Re8# 1-0

This is the same checkmate pattern that we saw in Morphy's Opera Game.

Clearance

This morning's thirty minutes of tactics was nine problems in Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations, 5th ed. (2014). Problems 352-360 begin the Basic portion of those classified as Clearance. Three problems took more than five minutes each.

White to move

No. 354 Urosov -- Kalinsky, corr. 1880.

Black to move

No. 358 Von Feilitzsch -- Wildegans, corr. 1939.

Black to move

No. 359 Gomes -- Netto, Rio de Janeiro 1942.

Inaccuracy

Working through Practical Chess Exercises: 600 Lessons From Tactics to Strategy (2007) by Ray Cheng,* I came to this position:

Black to move

Two moves occurred to me and I examined both. As it turns out, my two candidate moves are the engine's top choices. After some thought, I selected the second best move. Tigran Petrosian selected the best move and went on to win.

*This position is number 28. John Dill brought Cheng's book to my attention last Wednesday as described in "A Zugzwang Lesson". Cheng's book contains tactics and positional exercises that span all phases of the game--opening, middle, ending. Some solutions are defensive in nature; others offensive. They are neither sequenced by theme, nor by difficulty. Many originate in games between amateurs.

Finding the Sacrifice

I failed one of the so-called instructive (easy) problems in the Anthology of Chess Combinations, and then managed to fail the problem again less than one week later. At least I did not fail on the first move the second time. What should I notice in the position that would open my eyes to the sacrifices leading to checkmate?

White to move

The first move is a clearance sacrifice, but is really a not so simple exchange of knights.

1.Nb4

Is 1.Nc3 as good?

1...axb4 2.Qxd6

White's second move removes the defender of e8.

2...Qd7

White to move

I failed to find 3.Qd5, which pins the rook. Black's response, 3...Kf8, creates a position where White must begin a series of real sacrifices leading to checkmate. The final position is a common and well-known checkmate pattern, but the sequence of moves leading there remain difficult for me to anticipate from the diagram position.

4.Rxg7 Qxd5

Now, the position contains the decoy motif that I should know from Mayet -- Anderssen 1851.

5.Rg8+ Kxg8 6.Re8+ Rf8 7.Rxf8#.

The entire sequence has White giving up three pieces for a knight to effect checkmate, and employs the tactics of clearance, removing the guard, pin, and decoy. It is problem 32 in the Anthology of Chess Combinations, and has been the most troublesome combination in that set so far.