Greek Gift Sacrifice x 2 | BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT!! 🤩

#greekgift #triplebrilliant #chessromance 

The Greek Gift Sacrifice is a beautiful, devious, and Romantic tactic that I just love playing! 🤩👍 It’s a tactical motif that typically occurs in the early middlegame and can come from many different openings. The Greek Gift is one of the tactical patterns that is covered in my first book, 50+2 Chess Quick Wins: Tactical ideas for exciting chess for beginner players, and I covered it in some depth in my Tactics article here with the video below:

* * *

Wait, “first” book?

That’s right! You might have noticed that I haven’t published as many blogs and videos in the last month or so, especially the last couple of weeks. The reason for this is that I’ve been sinking almost all my free time into finishing my second book! 😃 My second book is almost ready for release (planned for mid-November 2024 on Amazon worldwide!), and I’m just waiting for a final sample to arrive to ensure that there isn’t a last-minute printing issue that demands a correction.

The new book’s title is, Become a Chess Assassin! Learn to play the best chess opening attacks and it’s a labour of love; I’ve spent over 1,000 hours working on it so far and I’m really proud of it. It rigorously covers the most deadly, beautiful, and fun, chess openings, and includes the history and stories of the people who have played these lines!

The draft description of the book from Amazon:

This book is a celebration of the Romantic style of chess. It is for people who love early aggressive attacks, who enjoy playing gambits, who are thrilled by daring piece sacrifices, or are curious to know more…!

Chess has, and always has been, a form of art and human expression. In that vein, being a Chess Assassin is one of the best ways to play chess. There is something compelling in mercilessly defeating your opponent in the opening stages of a game, especially with a brilliant display of swashbuckling tactics. Playing a shocking sacrifice and subverting your opponent’s expectations is exhilarating!

So, how does one Become a Chess Assassin? We must explore and learn to play the best chess opening attacks!

This book will teach you how to play some of the most lethal openings in chess using the best and most beautiful exemplar lines from chess history, including popular greats such as the Blackburne Shilling Gambit Trap, the Légal Trap, Fried Liver Attack, and the Traxler Counterattack, and many more!

Every chapter includes in-depth descriptions of the opening attack or trap, with full move-by-move board diagrams for the entire line! No more having to use a physical board with the book, or trying to hold multiple positions in your mind's eye. The tactics and logic of the trap will be explored, including how it could be refuted, and the variants of the opening.

The book is full of funny stories designed to place the chess into a historical context. The people who have played the chess, lived the chess, in days gone by, have woven together the vibrant tapestry of our modern shared community of chess. This book hopes to share with you a glimpse of the many narratives of those who have played.

This book is founded on the philosophical stance that the best chess opening attacks inspire us, and capture our imagination. They surprise us and delight us. They elicit emotions like awe and wonder, feelings that we might not have thought possible in simply moving pieces on a square board. The best chess opening attacks are evocative. And the purpose? This book will take you on a journey exploring these marvellous lines, so that you’ll see chess in a brilliant new light. And in doing so, that you’ll be motivated to play more chess, especially creative and exciting chess!

Foreword by US National Master, Bill Wall
Probably the most important part of a chess game is the opening. The opening in a game of chess is complex and almost infinite. It is easy for chess players to fall for chess traps in the opening when they are not so familiar with an opening variation and lose their way. Michael Tam has selected some of the best chess opening attacks and traps that inspire and capture the imagination. These instructive examples show the beauty in chess combinations and tactics. Michael demonstrates and explains many common tactical themes during the opening phase. I hope that Michael Tam’s work inspires you to play creative chess and perhaps you can use some of his ideas in your own games.
- NM Bill Wall, October 2024

* * *

Anyway, back to the Greek Gift!

The Greek Gift lends itself to lovely sacrificial chess and brilliant sacrifices, that is exactly the sort of chess I love to play! Now, everybody should play the chess they enjoy: if deep strategic position lines are your jam, then you do you! However, there is something magical about Romantic sacrificial chess and I believe that everybody should give the style a go! If you’re concerned about rating, then play some unrated casual games to explore the ideas and tactics. Rudolf Spielmann, one of the last great chess players of the Romantic style said it best in his book that systematised chess sacrifices:

The beauty of a game of chess is usually appraised, and with good reason, according to the sacrifices it contains. Sacrifice — a hallowed, heroic concept! Advancing in a chivalrous mood, the individual immolates himself for a noble idea.

— Rudolf Spielmann (1935), in “The Art of Sacrifice in Chess”

Game 1: THREE brilliant moves in the Caro-Kann Defense: von Hennig Gambit
https://www.chess.com/game/live/122252372705

My mind recently turned towards the Greek Gift Sacrifice as I had two glorious games of it in the last four. The first game was from a couple of weeks ago against an Indian opponent (नमस्ते). I believe that this is the best game that I’ve played, where I lost! And I’m not even mad! 😂 This was the first match where I was given THREE BRILLIANT MOVES in the same game by the Chess.com analytic engine, and blundered, because I couldn’t commit to the fourth sacrifice!

The first game started with my favourite response to the Caro-Kann Defense, the tricky, von Hennig Gambit (note: the von Hennig Gambit Queen Trap features as one of the chapters in my new book, along with an interesting story of the historical von Hennig, a U-boat commander in WWI and his daring escape from a British POW camp).

In the game, I predicted that my opponent would allow a Greek Gift Sacrifice as early as move 8, and pre-emptively played (8. Bd3!?). This projection was correct, and I had the first brilliancy, (11. Qxh7+!!) a bishop sac! This followed immediately with the next brilliant move, a knight sac (12. Ng5+!!). And then the danger! Sacrificing pieces can be intoxicating when it seems to be working, and I immediately snap captured back (14. Bxg5??) without thinking, I played the move in 1.3 seconds, and almost immediately on releasing the mouse button, I recognised that this wasn’t the correct move. I should have played (14. Qxf7+).

Luckily for me, Black had to find the single good response to punish my error, which was (14… Qxd4+!), but they didn’t find it! They played the very reasonable looking (14… f6??) instead, to block my bishop’s attack on their queen, and to counterattack my bishop. Except… I now sacrifice the bishop (15. Bxf6!!), the third brilliancy of the game! 😚🤌

With Black’s kingside pawns all fallen, their king was naked and exposed! The next five moves involved chasing Black’s king with checks, dragging him out of his nook, and corralling him into the centre of the board. At the end of turn 20, Black was in a sad situation, with their king their “most developed” piece on the c5 square, and all of their pieces still on the back rank!

Unfortunately, on move 21, I make my blunder as I lost my nerve! 😅 I considered (21. b4+), sacrificing my b-pawn but I wasn’t sure that was the right move. It was! That was pretty much the only winning move and in a game of Romantic sacrifices, I needed to double down and put another pawn on the alter to get the win. The PGN below has an indicative line where Black’s king will be forced back onto the open d-file, which allows for my rook to skewer their king to the queen.

Instead, by playing (21. Qc3+) and chasing with my queen, Black’s king eventually runs to the corner of a6, and Black can block all further checks. As I’d sacrificed materials for activity for the chase, this results in a losing middlegame and endgame. I played on for a bit, but I knew I’d stuffed up. I tried some tricky stuff, but on move 36, I resigned as it was all over. Nonetheless, I wasn’t even mad as this was a super fun game! GG, and well played by my opponent.

Game 2: Redemption; A brilliant bishop sac finished with smothered checkmate!
https://www.chess.com/game/live/124162785553

The second game was just from today (at the time of writing) and was against another opponent from the subcontinent, but this time from Pakistan (ہیلو). Once again, I had the White pieces and my opponent played Owen’s Defense, one of the Hypermodern openings that starts with a fianchetto of the queen’s (the light square) bishop. Against this, I usually just play according to Classical opening principles, which is to just take the centre.

However, in this game (and I’ve been trying this for a little while), I played (4. f4?!) as a means to take space. The engine considers this inaccurate, but it simply moves the evaluation dial back to [0.00], so the position is actually “just equal”. The engine would have preferred the more typical idea of developing the other knight first. What’s my logic? One of the potential downsides to the Hypermodern openings is that they can be a little bit slow. So, as a potential aggressive strategic approach, I’m choosing to use that opportunity to take space, and then aim to develop my king’s knight behind the f-pawn.

And it worked! After an opening tussle, and an inaccuracy move by Black (6… d5?!) trying to contest the centre, on move 7, I had the centre with a massive complex of pawns, and Black’s fianchetto bishop was locked out of the participation!

On move 9, I again had spidey-senses that Black was going to castle short eventually, and I’d get another Greek Gift Sacrifice set up! I was proven correct; Black didn’t see the tactic and castled kingside into the threat on move 10, a move that the Chess.com engine rated as a blunder!

After chasing away Black’s knight that was blocking my light square diagonal (11. g4), I had my brilliant bishop sac (12. Bxh7+!!), and then steps 2 and 3 of the Greek Gift (13. Qh4+) and (14. Ng5!). At this point, there was a forced checkmate line of 18-moves or so, if Black played with computer precision. What this did mean for me was that although I was winning, I didn’t have an immediately obvious way of forcing a checkmate.

Not wanting to blunder like my last brilliant game, I deliberately refrained myself from making intemperate and impatient moves, but really thinking through my moves on turn 16 and 17, spending almost a minute on both. I carefully took stock of what tactical resources I had, including, listing all the checks that I had available. And this paid off! I saw the possibility of the most beautiful mate!

Firstly, with (16. Qh8+), Black had only a single legal move which was to block the check (16… Ng8). This opened the dark square diagonal to Black’s king on the f8 square (from a3 to e7). Then, I played (17. Ba3+) down that diagonal. Black didn’t see what I was trying to do, and so to avoid losing material, blocked this second check, also with a knight (17… Ne7??). This was a terminal blunder as Black’s king was now smothered!

My queen’s move the turn before had vacated the h7 square and thus, (18. Nh7#) smothered checkmate! Glorious!