A Few Words With... Micah Fisher-Kirshner

Seeing my interest in the Jerome Gambit, people often send me games from the Micah Fisher-Kirshner vs KnightStalker match.

Mission San Jose, Fremont, California, USA, June, 1993: the computer wins the match, but the human scores (at least) 3 victories.

For a time I thought that we had discovered the first "human beats computer with the Jerome Gambit" game, but it turns out, according to Randspringer #6, 1990-91, that the irrepressible Jack Young – "Bozo," of "Bozo's Chess Emporium" – defeated Fidelity's Chess Challenger 10 (rated about 1300) in 1979.

So who was this Jerome Gambiteer, this silicon giant-killer? The USCF had KnightStalker rated in the mid 2200s!

In 1989 Michah won the California primary school K-3 individual championship, and in 1992 and 1994 he won California's elementary K-6 individual championship. In 2000 he was the state's high school individual champ.

I recently caught up with Micah Fisher-Kirshner, via the internet.

I was around 11 or 12 at the time... but yeah, it definitely brings back some hilarious memories of playing against Knight Stalker (or what later became Fritz I believe).

I can actually recall the situation of the games… I would play them on my dad’s 386

(I think that was the name of the HP computer) as part of my chess homework for the day or two.
Essentially during the summer my dad set up a schedule for myself and my brother and part of it was having to play against the computer for maybe an hour or so. You can imagine how tiresome that could theoretically get for a young kid.

I’m pretty sure I learned about the opening from one of my former chess teachers, Richard Shorman, whereupon I used it to really help develop some of my tactical skills in the game at the young age – what better way to learn how to fight in chess than by being down by so much?
I’m pretty sure at some point I put these games on one of my earlier versions of my website (probably v1 or v2 which I unfortunately never saved) and may have been copied from there to the rest of the Internet during those early days.

[According to ChessDryad.com's "California Chess History Hall of Fame" page Richard Shorman "has added more games to the CalGames Chess Database than anybody else" so he also may be a possibility - RK]

I should search around my place to see what I still have in terms of recorded games and put them all back up online – I doubt I have any more of those Jerome Gambit games than what you already have, but you never know.

As for myself, I graduated from UCSD in 2006 (my current website is way out of date – but my blog www.micahfk.com/blog is current) with a Master’s in Pacific International Affairs from the IR/PS graduate school (undergraduate Bachelor’s degree from The George Washington University in International Affairs).

I am currently on the board for Success Chess, but mainly I’m working as a Search Strategist in San Francisco at Red Bricks Media doing a lot of SEO and Analytics aspects for the company and clients.

So, there you go!

Following the student theme, if chess can be thought of as "a gymnasium of the mind" (Pratt) and the Blackmar Diemer Gambit referred to as a "high school for tactics" (Diemer), I suppose that the Jerome Gambit can be seen as a brawl behind the gym after school lets out...

If so, here's Round One:

Fisher-Kirshner,M - Knight Stalker
Mission San Jose, Fremont, CA: June, 1993

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 Bd4 9.fxe5+ Kc6 10.b4 Nh6 11.Qh5 Bxa1 12.b5+ Kxb5 13.e6+ Ka4 14.Nc3+ Bxc3 15.dxc3 Qf6 16.Qc5 Qh4+ 17.g3 Qxe4+ 18.Be3 Qxh1+ 19.Kd2 Qg2+ 20.Bf2 Qxf2+ 21.Qxf2 dxe6 22.Qc5 Rd8+ 23.Kc1 Rd4 24.cxd4 b5 25.c4 a6 26.cxb5 c6 27.a3 a5 28.Qc4+ Kxa3 29.Kc2 a4 30.Qc3+ Ka2 31.Qb2# 1-0


(Artwork compliments of Jeff Bucchino, "The Wizard of Draws")