You have bread. You have butter… and you want JAM?!'

What's the greediest chess move you’ve ever played?

For me, it was this position from a 2018 game. My knight was on d5, his pawn on f4. I just needed 5 minutes to calculate the crushing Ne7 … 

But I grabbed on f4 because I wanted JAM too!
Technically, White was still winning, but after 1...g5!!, it got much harder to convert. I overpushed... and even lost the game.

I first came across this quote in the brilliant book The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by GM Jonathan Rowson. At first, I thought it might be a British proverb, but no. It was GM Julian Hodgson who said it.

Rowson uses the quote to illustrate the problem of perfectionism—a situation where a player is not satisfied with a good position and keeps pushing for more. But in my case, the issue was a little different.

I already had a great (winning) position…

But I also wanted to win without calculating. I wanted it to be easy.

That want… was the jam.