Amédée Gibaud

Amédée (Aimé) Gibaud (5 March 1885, in Rochefort-sur-Mer – 18 August 1957, in Rochefort-sur-Mer) was a French chess master.

He won the French Chess Championship four times (1928, 1930, 1935, 1940) and won the French correspondence championship three times (1929, 1931, 1932). He tied for fourth/fifth at Ramsgate 1929 (Premier A, William Gibson won).

Gibaud played for France in 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad at Paris 1924, and 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad at Munich 1936.

Apocryphal game

A very short attributed to Gibaud and Frédéric Lazard is frequently reproduced in chess literature, sometimes with the claim that it was the shortest game ever played between masters in a formal setting.

The four-move, "formal" version of the game is not accepted as a real historical event. Gibaud denied having ever lost a serious game in four moves, instead suggesting that he may have lost a casual game against Lazard involving similar positional themes, albeit with more than four moves played. Gibaud also suggested that his game with Lazard might have been confused with a previously published "theoretical" miniature. Although the four-move version of the game is not accepted as historically accurate, it illustrates several principles of gameplay: the possibility for rapid development to cause serious problems for an opponent, the importance of not weakening the defense of critical squares, and the importance of defending a structural weakness on the kingside in the initial phase of the game (especially involving the f- and g- pawns), which if left unguarded may lead to a quick checkmate, akin to Fool's mate.