As played by White, the "Greek gift" in chess parlance (as in the Homeric "Beware the Greeks, especially when they come bearing gifts") is the sacrifice of a bishop on h7, which the castled black King can only accept at the expense of an awkward attack commencing Ng5+. The way I play, it is sometimes a genuine sacrifice in that the advantage (if any) after loosing the bishop can be beyond my ability to calculate, but I always offer it anyway in the style known at the club as searlendipitous, that is trying to play like Colin. Most of us like risky tactics from time to time. Only the climbing-up-through-the-ratings Andy is in principal never willing to sacrifice a rabbit to catch a fox not already in his headlights.

The game featured is my effort as White in a recent league match against Steve Rumsby from the Banbury Chess Club. As the annotations show, I seem to be several pawns short of a Harry-certified full box when it comes to calculating variations, missing more mates in eighteen moves than a promiscuous sparrow hawk pulls in a whole season. Sadly, I went home rather pleased with my victory in a "brevity", but subsequent analysis with the aid of the intimidating Mr. Fritz dented my self-congratulation. My notes below try to distinguish between what I saw at the time and what I missed.

White: David Jenkins
Black: Steve Rumsby

1 e4 e6
2 d4 d5
3 Nc3

When I play against the French, and this is a plea to future opponents, I always play 3 Nc3 hoping for the Winawer 3….Bb4 allowing 4 Bd2 and the insane complications of the "Finger-Slip Variation". The FSV is so-called because of the reply of the grandmaster who first played it to the obvious question it raises. Most of my games as White with Tom (Swallow) from the Kenilworth Chess Club go this route, and at the appropriate moment after a handful of moves he chimes in with my little mantra, "Two pawns down and a happy man". I have to admit that his tone is somewhat ironical whereas mine is celebratory, but the issue of whether the variation is playable remains undetermined between us.

3 ….Nf6

Alas no possibility of the Finger Slip, so what about some configuration in the area of the Albin Chatard Alekine attack? People in my experience only play the French if they are prepared to put up with the humiliations of endless defending, with no higher ambition than hoping to survive to an endgame with their better pawn structure intact. Such masochism should be indulged, say I.

4 e5 Nfd7

Normal stuff, and still "book".

5 Nf3

Hey, what's all this? I must have dozed off for a moment as a way of combating the sheer boredom of the French. I usually play h4 as early as possible against this kind of line.

5….Bb4

This move feels slightly strange, but I cannot put my finger on why.

6 Bd2 0-0

At this early castling, the possibility of a "Greek gift" hovered in my imagination like a seagull in a headwind. Let's get in Bd3 with an air of affected disinterest and see what happens. It is correct chess psychology to pretend you do not find your own moves remotely interesting, a technique perfected at the club by the legally-minded Stan but inexplicably not learned yet by management guru Ray. Only the elegant Jeremy has the right level of diffidence wired in.

7 Bd3

I was not expecting to be allowed actually to play the "Greek Gift", which like the "Philidor Legacy" (a Knight smother mate following a Queen sac on the square next to the castled King) is a rare sight over the board. I had calculated my move as likely to force a time-wasting move by the Black bishop scurrying back to e7 to hold g4. But the gift was wrapped ready, and all my Christmasses arrive at once.

7….c5??

It was clear that Steve instantly realized his oversight. The move c5 is in many circumstances standard in the French, but not here. I started humming the Bob Dylan number silently to myself in the darkness behind my eye, "It's all over now, Baby Blue". But it wasn't. As we shall see, pride in chess often comes before a fall. The next move plays itself.

8 Bxh7+! Kh8

So at last here come the Greeks bearing their gifts, not in theory, but over the board. Yet duplicity can cut both ways. The consistently ambiguous Delphic Oracle once deceived a suppliant by saying that "in the coming battle the wooden pieces will prevail" leaving it unclear whether the reference was to the attacking side in ships or the defending side in fortified turrets. Or, indeed, to chess! In the present game, belated recognition furrowed Steve's brow as he switched into calculation mode, eventually deciding to decline the "gift" by moving his King. Obviously, taking the bishop would have provoked Ng5+ and the King would not find things comfortable thereafter. [Fritz gives 8….Kxh7 9 Ng5+ Kg6 10 h4 Qe7 11 Qg4 f6 12 h5+ Kh6 13 Nxe6+ Kh7 (if 13 g5, hxg6 mate) 14 h6 g6]

Back to the text…

9 Ng5 g6
10 Qg4 cxd4.

I admired the spirit behind this move, which appeared to me to be not only robustly materialistic, but by implication contemptuous of my attack. I naturally wished to punish this hubris (the ancient Greek impropriety of insolence against the gods) and took twenty minutes over my next move supposedly calculating all the variations. Please look at the diagram, dear reader and fellow axemen of Stratford Chess Club, and tell me what you would have done?

In fact there is an elegant forced mate from this position. [Fritz gives 11 Bxg6 Nxe5 12 Qh4+ Kg7 13 Nxe6+ Kxg6 (and down goes the determined martyr-bishop) 14 Qh6+ Kf5 15 Nxe6 Kg4 16 h3 mate]. I would absolutely love to have had the chess vision to see that a delayed bishop sac was once again "on" in this position. Instead your hero opts for the less "killer" and more "optical" Neanderthal moves that the text has recorded:

11 Qh3

Can't be too bad. But where exactly is it going?

11….Nxe5

Thus responds the visiting Banbury materialist. Don't worry about that either, says Fritz, demonstrating that the mate is still on if the position is correctly understood. But your man Jenkins still does not see it and decides to bring up more bits into the attack, hopefully including the Rook up the f file.

12 f4??

Not only does this manage to miss yet another sibling in the family of mates, it allows some possibility of counter-play.

12….dxc3

But not this seemingly energetic move, which is really no more than a diversion, which as Fritz points out can be ignored and yet another mate launched, this time beginning with either Bg8+ or fxe5. Your hero mistakes the traffic cones for the obstruction and still cannot calculate through to the win. He swats away at the shadows first, just in case they turn out to have teeth. Down, down you dogs.

13 bxc3 Be7

Amazingly, the Bg8+ etc. mate is still on, but the Jenkins mindset is now firmly committed to the gradualism of plan B

14 0-0 Kg7

This freeing move had been anticipated for some time and it became opportune at this point (indeed necessary) to prevent the Black rook getting to h8.

15 Bg8

Is White determined to sacrifice this bishop? Does he hate the clergy or something?

15….Rxg8?

At last the gift of the Bishop is unwrapped.

16 Qh7 Kf6??

Although 16 ….Kf8 is uncomfortable, it does at least escape the immediate attack and takes Black into a dilapidated endgame minus his King's Rook. The text move is a disaster for Black, with two available forced mates one of which your hero actually managed to see. The game finished

17 fxe5+ Kxe5
18 Bf4+ Kf5
19 g4+

Here Steve resigned as his two available King moves lead to an immediate mate, either by Qh3 or Qf7

OK the quiver-full of mating sequences I missed were complex, a clutch of moves long, and had counter-intuitive elements that made them hard to spot. And you have to admit that the ending was pretty. But I know Colin and Carl would have found the correct mating moves as a matter of routine, and Rod too on one of his red mist days. Pulchritudinous as the ending was, I might even then at the last gasp have sown things up with one move less [with 18 Nxf7 Ke4 19 Re1 mate], but outside of chess problems there is never a compelling reason to abandon a demonstrable forced win that one has already perceived in order to look for a shorter one.

So how do I think I played? I suspect competently until soon after the offer of the "Greek Gift", but from then until the very end a bit like a rock ape. In ancient Greek drama "Sophoclean irony" was when the accidental has the appearance of design, but it is the reverse condition that just about sums up my chess at the moment. But I do not, workers of the wood-pushers ghetto, feel in consequence inhibited from offering advice. My advice is to offer the "Greek Gift" if ever you get the chance and don't waste time on the calculations until after you make the move. But there is one final word of warning: the gods are just, it is of our own follies that they make instruments to plague us. Against that trick there is no defence.