Greek Gift Sacrifice

The Greek Gift is probably the most important and very elementary attacking pattern every chess player should be familiar with. In the very simplest form, the white player sacrifices his bishop on the pawn in h7. In the next move white checks with the queen from h5, which is followed by knight g5 and a mate in h7.

This sacrificial attack can occur in many different forms and, of course, in the middle games resulting from many different openings. Traditionally, the classical bishop sacrifice is most often presented in positions from the French defense, where white often advances his pawn to e5. This pawn weakens the black defense of the castled king as f6 is not anymore available for the knight. As a consequence of this, the square h7 is weakened.

In addition to the French defense, this attacking idea is very familiar to anyone playing the white side of the Colle opening. In fact, one of the most famous games featuring the Greek gift sacrifice was played by Edgar Colle in 1930.

The exotic name of this tactical weapon has been given two different explanations. Some authors explain the  "Greek" as a translation for the name of Gioachino Greco who was the world's best chess player in the early seventeenth century and has been known to play this sacrifice. Mikhail Botvinnik has even called Greco the first professional chess player in the history of the game.

Other authors have not been convinced by this explanation. They have found another possible explanation for the name of the sacrifice in even earlier history, the epic attack lead by Ulysses in Troy as related by Homer and other ancient greek authors. It was his idea to build a wooden horse which allowed the Greek army to sneak into the city they had besieged for ten years without being able to conquer the city.

But let us leave the historical and mythological explanations for the name of the Greek Gift sacrifice. After all, as chess players we are more interested in winning the next game than in explaining the name of this attacking idea that every chess player should be able to recognize on the board. After looking at a few interesting games with this bishop sacrifice, even an ordinary club player should be able to sacrifice the bishop on h7 with confidence!