Making a living from chess, Renaissance-style

BREAKING NEWS:

FIDE officials said Tuesday they are ready to restart the aborted Candidates Tournament to pick a challenger to Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen. The event was halted at the midway point in March as the coronavirus pandemic was shutting down activities and sports leagues around the world.

The eight-grandmaster, double round-robin tournament will resume Nov. 1 in Yekaterinberg, Russia. (Tbilisi, Georgia, has been agreed to be a back-up if conditions aren’t suitable in the Russian city.)

With seven rounds to go, French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi were tied for the lead at 4½-2½, with American GM Fabiano Caruana one of four players just a point behind.

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Make your passion your job, they say, and you’ll never work a day in your life.

On this Labor Day week, it’s a melancholy thought that so few of the millions of us who love the Royal Game can actually make a living just by playing it. World champion Magnus Carlsen and a handful of his elite peers can live nicely off of their tournament winnings, appearance fees and endorsement deals — though the remuneration is nothing like that for a LeBron James or a Lionel Messi.

For that vast majority of even very strong players, however, chess can be a precarious existence of relatively modest tournament prize funds, coaching gigs, book deals, and perhaps even a “real job” as a bookkeeper, janitor or stock trader to pay the bills.

It’s fitting this week, then, that we celebrate the man many consider the first full-time “professional” chessplayer, Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634). While the details are sketchy, the Italian-born Greco appears to have made a go of it traveling to France, England and Spain in his short life, beating all comers and producing a string of manuscripts on tactics, openings and his own praxis that would remain influential for centuries to come.

Greco is even having something of a moment these days ­— his most celebrated works came out 400 years ago this year and there’s a new appreciation for his pioneering insights, the soundness of his play and the vast gap in his strength at the board compared to his contemporaries.

Dutch IM Willy Hendriks, in his instant classic “On the Origin of Good Moves,” a devastating revisionist take on the evolution of chess theory and practice, devotes the book’s first two chapters to Greco, saying he had a grasp of the importance of development, central control and tactical motifs that stand the test of time four centuries later.

“If you play over all the games by Greco, you cannot but be amazed by the enormous strength of this player and by the importance and variety of his ideas,” Hendriks writes.

The vast majority of Greco’s surviving games are short, sharp battles, some apparently composed by the author to illustrate a point or demonstrate a mating pattern. (No opponents’ names have survived.) But a few give off a strong whiff of real competition, and are all the more impressive for it.

Today’s first game, after some very modern maneuvering in a closed Euwe French Defense line, features the first genuine positional sacrifice in modern chess history. After blockading the center (White misses 12. d5!?, which would have foiled the Black bind), Greco gives up a knight for two pawns to get his queenside pawns rolling with 21. Qc2 (see diagram) Nxd4!? (Ra8 was a sensible alternative, and now the unsafe position of both kings leads to some sharp play) 22. cxd4 Qxd4+ 23. Kh1 Be4 24. Qc3 Qc5 25. Nd2 Bd3 26. Rc1 Rc8? (preparing to unleash the pawns, but both players miss that White now has 27. Be7! Qxe7 28. Qxd3!, and Black can’t recapture because of the back-rank weakness) 27. Nb3?! (missing his chance, but it’s remarkable to see two players in the early 1600s tossing aside material for dynamic considerations) cxb3! 28. Qxc5 Rxc5 29. Rxc5 h6! 30. Rc3 b2 31. Rb3 b1=Q+ 32. Rxb1 Bxb1 33. Be7 Kh7, and a tricky opposition-colored bishop results.

Poor “NN” probably draws with best play, but grandmasters to this day make a living of winning equal endgames over their inferiors. White’s 37. g5?? hands the light squares to Black’s king, the White h-pawn soon falls and Greco takes the point when his own h-pawn queens.

The second game is far more typical of Greco’s oeuvre, but it’s still fun to watch the very first appearance of a mating idea that is now in the repertoire of every decent C player. White’s kingside pawn storm makes a very modern impression after 14. h5! gxh5 15. g5! (ousting the knight to crack open the h-file) Ng4 16. Rxh5 Nxe3 17. Rh8+!! (as Hendriks notes, White had to have seen this back on Move 15, as 17. fxe3? g6 is very playable for Black) Kxh8 18. Qh5+ Kg8 19. g6! (cutting off the king’s escape routes and exploiting the pin on the f-pawn) Re8 (Ng2+ 20. Kf1 changes nothing) 20. Qh7+ Kf8 21. Qh8 mate.

NN-Greco, Miscellaneous game, 1620

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bd7 6. Be3 c4 7. b3 b5 8. a4 a6 9. axb5 axb5 10. Rxa8 Qxa8 11. bxc4 dxc4 12. Be2 Nge7 13. O-O Nd5 14. Bd2 Be7 15. Ng5 Bxg5 16. Bxg5 O-O 17. Bf3 Na5 18. Bxd5 Qxd5 19. f4 Bc6 20. Qd2 Nb3 21. Qc2 Nxd4 22. cxd4 Qxd4+ 23. Kh1 Be4 24. Qc3 Qc5 25. Nd2 Bd3 26. Rc1 Rc8 27. Nb3 cxb3 28. Qxc5 Rxc5 29. Rxc5 h6 30. Rc3 b2 31. Rb3 b1=Q+ 32. Rxb1 Bxb1 33. Be7 Kh7 34. g4 Be4+ 35. Kg1 Bf3 36. h3 h5 37. g5 Kg6 38. Kf2 Bd5 39. Ke3 h4 40. Kf2 Kf5 41. Ke3 Bg2 42. Bf8 g6 43. Bb4 Bxh3 44. Be1 Kg4 45. Bd2 Bg2 46. Kf2 h3 47. Bc1 Bd5 48. Kg1 Kg3 49. Be3 h2+ 50. Kf1 h1=Q+ White resigns.

Greco-NN, Miscellaneous game, 1620

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Bg4 4. h3 Bh5 5. c3 Nf6 6. d3 Be7 7. Be3 O-O 8. g4 Bg6 9. Nh4 c6 10. Nxg6 hxg6 11. h4 b5 12. Bb3 a5 13. a4 b4 14. h5 gxh5 15. g5 Ng4 16. Rxh5 Nxe3 17. Rh8+ Kxh8 18. Qh5+ Kg8 19. g6 Re8 20. Qh7+ Kf8 21. Qh8 mate.

• David R. Sands can be reached at 202/636-3178 or by email dsands@washingtontimes.com.