Carrera Pietro (12.07.1573 – 18.09.1647)

Italian player, a priest and a historian.
His major work Il Gioco degli Scacchi was published in 1617 (reprinted in 2003) and translated in English in 1822. The book was subdivided into eight books or chapters talking about learning the rules, the odds, the endgames, the blindfold chess and a discussion about the true origins of chess.

Author of the Carrera Gambit (named also Carrera-Breyer) used few times by Julius Breyer, Rudolf Spielmann, and Geza Maroczy: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Qf3.

According H.J.R.  Murray(1910), Carrera was also the inventor of a chess variant (Carrera’s chess) on an 8×10 chessboard, in which there were added two new pieces called the “Champion” (a combination of the moves of the Tower and the Knight) and “Centaurus” (a combination of the Bishop and the Knight); these innovations had more fame than the ones made by Piacenza and Marinelli. It was a predecessor of Capablanca chess.  The game never got beyond 1620.