A Pawn for a Queen: The Giuoco Piano

I Played Offence

Hello! 👋

This is the "Italian Game: Giuoco Piano" opening position:

Now then, you might see that title and think —

Oh, a pawn promoted to a queen, rather ordinary. Moving on.

Well. Not so, dear reader. Here is what actually happened:

1. Black nicked a pawn. 🥷
2. Black got their queen forked. 💥

This was a casual blitz game, three minutes a side, rated somewhere around 1400, mayhap, which is precisely where the comedy lives.

We had a perfectly respectable Italian going, and then on move 7 I played 7.Kh2 and absent-mindedly forgot that my e4 pawn was hanging.

Black took it in two seconds. You can see the timestamp in the game below. So Black simply grabbed it like a gull snatching a chip off a seafront bench.

My reaction was —

Hm. You menace! Right. Let's avenge that poor pawn.

Right. So.

The chasing scene.

By move 14, Black's knight on c6 was being chased by my pawn on b5, like a bloke being pursued down the high street by a bailiff. Did he run? He did not. He stopped, gave the bailiff a cheery little wave, dashed over to the bailiff's car and CRACKED the wing mirror clean off. 🏏💥

⬆️ That was 14...axb5.

And the bailiff, also known as "me", instead of taking that dangling a7 bishop, did the 17.Bc6 — like a humble citizen.

As if the bailiff straightened his tie, brushed a speck of glass off his lapel, and said with the composure of a butler at a house fire —

Right. Nothing to see here. I'll resume my duty.

But the mirror, you see, was never forgotten. It was merely filed under "later".

Then came the sequence:

• 18.Bxd7+, the response: Black dragged their king onto d7.
• 19.Ncxe5+ dxe5: Black recaptured the pawn.
• 20.Nxe5+ and there it was. — Hello, Madam Queen!

Black didn't resign. They simply left, evaporated like a spectre, presumably rattling off down the aisle of a Tesco in a shopping trolley with one wonky wheel, wailing —

(Unknown.)

Let the amusement commence!

You can use your left and right arrows on your keyboard or use the mouse scroll to see the moves back and forth on the chessboard. But first, click the board.

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Giuoco Piano

Here's a brief description about the opening.

The Giuoco Piano arises after —

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5

Anyway, "giuoco piano" is Italian for quiet game — not a person's name.

• "Giuoco" (old time spelling), or "gioco" (modern spelling) = game or play.

• "Piano" = soft or quiet.

  Like the dynamics in music. Piano, pianissimo, mezzo piano, etc. Not the musical instrument piano.

So in that opening pattern, both sides bring out their pieces to natural squares and aim for central control, usually with c3 and d4 to follow. Rather a calm development, usually.

The old Italian masters of the 16th and 17th centuries studied it closely.

Gioachino Greco, "il Calabrese", being the most famous of them. He was born around 1600 in Celico, in Calabria, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, and he wrote manuscripts of Italian Game analysis that were copied and published long after his death around 1634.

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Thanks for visiting. 🍻