The Hjorth Attack

Greg Hjorth is a name known to all who played Chess in Australia in the late seventies, early eighties. By the time I had learned the moves in 1978, Greg had been a prodigy for many years. We met at a Chess camp where Australia’s best players including then, number one IM Robert Jamieson were instructing Juniors. Greg offered to play me 1 minute to 5 and a Queen start.

Greg Hjorth (photo taken by Haydn Barber)

We became good friends and would often look at chess together. One of Greg’s more imaginative (crazy) ideas was to play d6, Nd7, e6, Be7, Nf8 and g5! launching an attack on the hopefully castled white King. Greg was smart enough not to play it in serious games (to the best of my knowledge) but I could not resist. First an unsuccessful attempt againstHaydn Barber!

Terrey Shaw was one of Australia’s leading players back then, former winner of the Doeberl cup, First equal in the 1977-78 Australian Championship and member of the Olympiad squad not to mention one of Australia’s very few International masters back then. An enormous challenge as you can imagine, considering my rating (1895) and position in Australian chess. But so stubborn and arrogant was I at that age that I was going to try the “Hjorth Attack” again despite the drubbing given me by Messrs Brown and Barber. Luckily for me Terrey attacked before I could misplace all my pieces and forced me into a normal position. Greg meanwhile crushed everybody and won the tournament.