Greek Gift
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Greek Gift
In chess, the Greek gift sacrifice, also known as the classical bishop sacrifice, is a typical sacrifice of a bishop by White playing Bxh7+ or Black playing Bxh2+ at some point after the opponent has castled kingside. Greek gift sacrifices, or the threat of them, occur relatively frequently in play, especially at the lower levels. One of the most famous examples of the sacrifice is found in the game Edgard Colle– John O'Hanlon, Nice 1930. Less commonly, a Greek gift sacrifice may be the prelude to a double bishop sacrifice, as seen in Lasker versus Bauer, Amsterdam, 1889. Illustration The position after the moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nf3 Bb4 6.Bd3 0-0 (see diagram) is a simple case where the Greek gift sacrifice works. White can play 7.Bxh7+ Kxh7 8.Ng5+ to force Black to give up the queen to prevent mate: *8...Kh8 9.Qh5+ Kg8 10.Qh7 *8...Kg8 9.Qh5 threatening 10.Qh7#, to which the only feasible responses are **9...Qxg5 10.Bxg5 wins the queen, and **9...Re8 10 ...
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Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. The rules of chess as we know them today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no use of dice or cards. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, t ...
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Laocoön
Laocoön (; grc, , Laokóōn, , gen.: ), is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest. He and his two young sons were attacked by giant serpents, sent by the gods. The story of Laocoön has been the subject of numerous artists, both in ancient and in more contemporary times. Family Laocoön was variously called as the son of Acoetes, Antenor, or Poseidon; or the son of Priam and Hecuba. He had two sons. Death The most detailed description of Laocoön's grisly fate was provided by Quintus Smyrnaeus in ''Posthomerica'', a later, literary version of events following the ''Iliad''. According to Quintus, Laocoön begged the Trojans to set fire to the Trojan horse to ensure it was not a trick. Athena, angry with him and the Trojans, shook the ground around Laocoön's feet and painfully blinded him. The Trojans, watching this unfold, assumed Laocoön was punished for the Trojans' mutilating and doubting Sinon, the undercover Greek soldi ...
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Vladimir Vuković
Vladimir Vuković (26 August 1898, Zagreb – 18 November 1975, Zagreb) was a Croatian Jewish chess writer, theoretician, player, arbiter, and journalist. Chess career Included in Vuković's tournament record achievements: * 3rd at Celje 1921, behind Stefan Erdélyi and Imre König * =4–7th at Vienna 1921 tied with Ernst Grünfeld, Savielly Tartakower, and Árpád Vajda; won by Friedrich Sämisch * 1st at Vienna 1921 * =10–11th at Vienna 1922; won by Akiba Rubinstein * =4–5th at Györ 1924 (Hungarian Chess Championship); won by Géza Nagy * =4–5th at Debrecen 1925; won by Hans Kmoch * 7th at Kecskemét 1927 (elim., group B); won by Lajos Steiner * =6–7th at Kecskemét 1927 (final B); won by Savielly Tartakower * 3rd at Ramsgate 1929, behind Adolf Seitz and Árpád Vajda He played for Yugoslavia on in the 1st Chess Olympiad at London 1927, posting a record of +7−6=2. He was awarded the International Master (IM) title in 1951 and International Arbiter (IA) in 1952. ...
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Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ...
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Gioachino Greco
Gioachino Greco (c. 1600 – c. 1634) ( ελληνικά/greek: Τζοακίνο Γκρέκο), surnamed Cusentino and more frequently ''il Calabrese'', was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the earliest chess games known in their entirety. His games, which never indicated players, were quite possibly constructs, but served as examples of brilliant combinations. Greco was very likely the strongest player of his time, having played (and defeated) the best players of Rome, Paris, London, and Madrid. Greco's writing was in the form of manuscripts for his patrons, in which he outlined the rules of chess, gave playing advice, and presented instructive games. These manuscripts were later published to a wide audience and became massively influential after his death. Name The name "Greco" is often assumed to be indicative of a Greek heritage. Indeed, Calabria, the region in which Greco was born, has a long history of Greek immigration and use of Greek as the ...
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The Oxford Companion To Chess
''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' is a reference book on the game of chess written by David Vincent Hooper and Kenneth Whyld. The book is written in an encyclopedia format. The book belongs to the Oxford Companions series. Details The first edition of the book was published in 1984 by Oxford University Press. The second edition (1992) has over 2,500 entries, including rules, terms, strategies, tactics, over 500 brief biographies of famous players, and entries on more than 700 named openings and opening variations. In the back of the book is a comprehensive index of opening variations and sub-variations, listing 1,327 named variations. The book also discusses chess from other countries (such as shogi), chess variants (such as three dimensional chess), and some forms of fairy chess. Editions * First published in 1984 by Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the w ...
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Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', and fashioned th ...
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Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ''Aeneid'' is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition. Life and works Birth and biographical tradition Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by the Roman ...
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Timeo Danaos Et Dona Ferentes
''Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes'', paraphrased in English as "I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts", is a Latin phrase from ''Aeneid,'' a Latin epic poem written by Virgil. The phrase is spoken by Trojan priest Laocoön referring to the Trojan Horse used by the Greeks during the Trojan War. The literal meaning of the phrase is "I fear the Danaans reeks even those bearing gifts" or "even when they bear gifts". Most printed versions of the text have the variant ''ferentis'' instead of ''ferentes''. In modern English, it is used as a proverb to warn against trusting an enemy or adversary, even when they appear to be making an enticing offer. Origin As related in the ''Aeneid'', after a nine-year war on the beaches of Troy between the Danaans (Greeks from the mainland) and the Trojans, the Greek seer Calchas induces the leaders of the Greek army to win the war by means of subterfuge: build a huge wooden horse and sail away from Troy as if in defeat—leaving the horse behind as ...
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Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the ''Odyssey''. But in the ''Aeneid'' by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war. Metaphorically, a "Trojan horse" has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer pr ...
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Sacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move that gives up a piece with the objective of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value. Any chess piece except the king may be sacrificed. Because players usually try to hold on to their own pieces, offering a sacrifice can come as an unpleasant surprise to one's opponent, putting them off balance and causing them to waste precious time trying to calculate whether the sacrifice is sound or not, and whether to accept it. Sacrificing one's queen (the most valuable piece), or a string of pieces, adds to the surprise, and such games can be awarded . Types of sacrifice Real versus sham Rudolf Spielmann proposed a division between sham and real sacrifices: * In a ''real sacrifice'', the sacrificing player will often have to play on with less than their opponent for quite some time. * In a ''sham sacrifice'', t ...
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Etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological change, form of words and, by extension, the origin and evolution of their semantic meaning across time. It is a subfield of historical linguistics, and draws upon comparative semantics, Morphology_(linguistics), morphology, semiotics, and phonetics. For languages with a long recorded history, written history, etymologists make use of texts, and texts about the language, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in Semantics, meaning and Phonological change, form, or when and how they Loanword, entered the language. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about forms that are too old for any direct information to be available. By analyzing related ...
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