The Greek Gift Sacrifice

The sacrifice has three moves and each one has a job. Bxh7+ removes the pawn that shields the king and, by check, gives Black almost no choice: taking the bishop is the natural reply. That is an attraction: the king is pulled onto h7, a square where the next blow lands. Ng5+ checks the king again with the knight from f3, and from g5 the knight also covers h7, f7 and e6. Then the queen joins, usually Qh5 down the diagonal the knight has just cleared, and the threat is Qh7 mate.

The diagram is the position used on the rest of this page. White has the classic set-up: a bishop on d3, a knight on f3, the queen on d1, a pawn on e5 that has driven Black's knight from f6 to d7. Step through the first three moves.

Go through these before you take on h7. If one fails, look for the reason it fails before you hope.

• The bishop sees h7. It stands on the b1-h7 diagonal (d3, c2, e4) with nothing in between, and h7 is defended by the king alone.
• The knight reaches g5. It sits on f3 (or h3, e4) and can jump to g5 with check. If a black piece covers g5, a bishop on e7 or the queen on d8 with f6 empty in between, you need a way to take back there, like the bishop on c1 here.
• The queen reaches the h-file in one move. Qh5 from d1 needs e2, f3 and g4 empty, which is why the knight has to leave f3 with check. Qd3 or a rook lift to h3 can do the same job.
• Nothing defends h7 or h5. A black knight on f6 is the classic defender: it guards both squares. A pawn on e5 is what usually keeps it away. A black bishop on f5 guards h7 too, from the other side.
• The king cannot run. The rook on f8 blocks the king's way out, and Black has no counterattack fast enough to ignore a mate threat.

The marked squares show them on the board: the bishop and its target, the knight and g5, the queen and h5, and the e5 pawn.

Going back to g8 looks safest, and it is the reply you will meet most often. Qh5 threatens Qh7 mate, and the defences that look natural all lose. Re8, to make room on f8, runs into Qxf7+ and a mate a few moves later. Nf6, the knight returning to guard h7, is taken by the e5 pawn. Black's best is to give the queen for the knight, Qxg5 and Bxg5: White has given a bishop and a knight and taken a queen and a pawn, four points up.

That is the line to have in your head before you sacrifice: after Kg8, you need Qh5 to come with a mate threat, and nothing black to reach h7 in time.

Kg6 keeps the king next to its pawns and out of the queen's reach on the h-file. Qd3+ brings the queen back to the diagonal the bishop left. The king has three answers and two are mates: Kh6 runs into Qh7 mate, Kh5 into Qh7+ Kg4 and Qh3 mate. Only f5 blocks, and then Black again has to give the queen for the knight.

Other set-ups use other tools against Kg6: Qg4, threatening a discovered check from the knight, or h4 and h5+, pushing the king forward where the queen and knight can reach it. What they share is that the king on g6 is in front of its pawns, and every check comes with tempo.

Kh6 steps onto the diagonal of the bishop on c1, with only the knight on g5 in between. Nxe6+ moves the knight with a discovered check from the bishop, and the knight on e6 attacks the queen on d8 and the rook on f8 at once. Black loses the queen.

Kh8, the king going to the corner after Ng5+, is the shortest loss: Qh5+ Kg8 and Qh7 is mate, the knight on g5 protecting the queen.

Black does not have to take the bishop. Kh8 leaves it on h7, a pawn up for White, and hopes to trap it later. But the bishop now covers g8, and Ng5 brings the same attack a move later: the knight eyes f7 and h7, and Qh5 is coming with discovered checks from the bishop. Here Black's best is again to give the queen for the knight. In many positions declining is a real try, so check that the attack still works when the king refuses the gift.

Every condition on the list is there because a missing one is how the sacrifice loses. The most common is the knight on f6. In the diagram White has the same bishop on d3 and knight on f3, but the pawn is still on e3 and Black's knight sits on f6. Bxh7+ is answered by Nxh7: the knight takes back, the king never comes forward, and White is simply a piece down.

The other failures are quieter. The king walks back to g8 and the queen cannot reach h5 in one move. The knight on g5 can be taken and nothing takes back. The king escapes to f8 because the rook has left it. Black has a check of their own that arrives first. Before you take on h7, play the line forward to the queen's move against each king reply. If one of them leaves you without a threat, keep the bishop. Removing the knight on f6 first, by exchanging it or driving it with e5, is often what makes the gift possible; that is removing the defender, and the knight's jump with check to clear the queen's path is a clearance.

The game that put the sacrifice in the books was played by Edgard Colle, who gave his name to the Colle System, against John O'Hanlon at Nice in 1930. The bishop came from e4 rather than d3, and Black's rook stood on e8, so f8 was free. 12.Bxh7+ Kxh7 13.Ng5+ Kg6 14.h4 Rh8 15.Rxe6+ Nf6 16.h5+ Kh6 17.Rxd6 Qa5 18.Nxf7+ Kh7 19.Ng5+ Kg8 20.Qb3+, and Black resigned.

The game is the textbook example, and it is also a warning. A modern engine (Stockfish 19, checked for this page) gives 13...Kg8 as a draw: 14.Qh5 Qf6, and the f8 square the rook left lets the king run. O'Hanlon chose Kg6, the h-pawn came up the board with check, and the attack never stopped.