Gioachino Greco
Gioachino Greco (* around 1600 in Calabria , † 1634 in "India", probably on the West Indies ) was the most important chess master of the 17th century.
Life
Greco, who was born in Calabria around 1600, is at the end of the "Golden Age" of Italian chess. As early as 1619 he made a name for himself in Rome when he played and won against several leading masters. In that year he also wrote his first treatise on chess with games he commented on.
The new thing about his chess scripts was that he intuitively grasped the essence of the combination game . He devoted himself particularly to puppet play and his tactical possibilities and found wonderful combinations and surprising twists, which he also demonstrated in his games. Today they are part of the armament of every tournament player, back then they were groundbreaking. A combination motif found by Greco against the king in the starting position, contained in his game collection from 1619, has gone down in chess history under the term " Greco's mate ".
In 1621 Greco went to France and in Nancy dedicated a copy of his book to the Duke of Lorraine . In Paris , thanks to his excellent playing skills, he won 5000 scudi while playing chess, a fortune by the standards of the time. However, all money was stolen from him in a robbery on a trip to London .
In 1625 Greco revised his treatise, first mentioning the new form of castling, which corresponds to today's, and adding a richer compilation of endgames and game analyzes. The revised manual did not appear until after his death.
Via Madrid he went to "India", which probably means the West Indies and especially the Antilles . There he died in 1634. He bequeathed his fortune to the Jesuits . His chess book was later translated into many languages and printed in many editions. Greco's influence on chess in Europe lasted for several centuries.
reception
Greco's life is the subject of Freerk Bulthaupt's 2014 novel, Openings - The Traits of Chess Master Greco .
Work editions
- Le jeu des echets. Traduit de l'Italien de Gioachino Greco, Calabrois French edition (Paris 1714)
- Moses Hirschel's lessons for chess players: In addition to the discovery of the secrets of the chess game of their gentlemen Gioachino Greco Calabrois and the Arab Philipp Stamma, second edition of the Hirschel edition (Leipzig 1795)
- Gioachino Greco on the Game of Chess English annotated edition by William Lewis (London 1819)
literature
- Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa: Berlin chess memories along with the games of Greco and Lucena . Leipzig 1859.
- Moses Hirschel: The chess of Mr. Gioachino Greco Calabrois and the chess game secrets of the Arab Philipp Stamma . Breslau 1784 (reprinted in Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-283-00014-X ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Gioachino Greco in the catalog of the German National Library
- Frank Mayer, Alessandro Sanvito: “La sua immagine rimarrà per semper conosciuta” Gioacchino Greco - Il Calabrois (1600 - 1630) ( Memento from July 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 314 kB; 8 pages)
- Publications by and about Gioachino Greco in VD 17 . (No entries on February 7, 2018)
Individual evidence
- ^ J. Gizycki: Chess at all times. 1st edition, Zurich 1967, p. 28f.
- ↑ Freerk Bulthaupt: Openings - The traits of the chess master Greco . LIT Verlag, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89781-230-7 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Greco, Gioachino |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian chess master |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1600 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Calabria |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1634 |
| Place of death | in the Antilles |