Gioachino Greco: The First Chess Master

Greco’s life was short – born around 1600 in Italy he would die of illness soon after traveling to the New World in 1634. Nevertheless, he had time to establish himself as the premier player in Europe during the 1620s, handily defeating the best players in Rome, Paris, London and Madrid; earning sums of prize money that made him the first professional chess player.

Perhaps his greatest legacy was the large number of books he wrote on chess in which, unlike the custom at the time, he would annotate entire games for posterity. He wrote these books primarily for his patrons in the royal courts and never referenced any of his opponents by name. Indeed whether many of the games in his books are entirely fabricated is unclear – what is clear is that the games show an understanding of chess centuries ahead of its time.

Take the following game in the Sicilian Defense:

That this game was recorded more than 400 years ago is difficult to believe! Greco shows remarkable understanding: he fixes the pawn structure on the queenside and advances his kingside majority to obtain a crushing position.

Another fascinating game is this French Defense encounter:

Greco plays bold, tactical chess, foreshadowing the Romantic era of the following centuries. He obtains a bishop ending up a pawn and shows endgame technique well ahead of his time to “bring the point home.”

Of course, Greco’s play was far from perfect and the following two games illustrate this. First, an interesting d4 game in which Greco obtains a dominant position but lets the advantage slip, giving counterplay to his opponent:

Aside from the ending, the quality of play is quite remarkable on both sides. Finally, a game which Greco probably should have lost:

Greco fails to generate an attack from his Wing Gambit and ends up down a pawn with an inferior position. He then plays excellent resourceful chess, creating problems for his opponent and bringing his pieces one by one into the attack. The game ends in a wonderful mate.

In the 90 surviving full games of Gioachino Greco there are of course many shorter, perhaps more brilliant displays of attacking chess – I chose these four games because they display an understanding of chess hundreds of years ahead of its time. Don’t agree? Feel free to debate it in the forum.

Until next time,
Dan