Gioacchimo Greco

Gioacchino Greco (c. 1600 – c. 1634) was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the earliest chess games known. His games, all against anonymous opponents ("NN"), were quite possibly constructs (Hooper & Whyld 1992), but served as highly useful tools for spotting opening traps.

Mikhail Botvinnik considered Greco to be the first professional chess player (Gufeld & Stetsko 1996:5).

Greco was also known in Italy as il Calabrese ("the Calabrian"). Some sources quote that his parents were Greeks and that he had been born at Celico, a village near Cosenza (Murray 2012:828).

Greco was a remarkable chess player in the era between Ruy López de Segura and François-André Danican Philidor, and authored a famous manual containing many traps and checkmating patterns. As one of the players during the age of "Italian Romantic Style", he studied the Giuoco Piano (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5) and published his analysis in the form of short games around 1625. In 1656, after his death, the manuscripts were published by Francis Beale in London. These games are regarded as classics of early chess literature and are sometimes still taught to beginners.

Greco paved the way for many of the attacking legends of the Romantic era, such as Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy, and François Philidor.

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