Pete Banks ("blackburne") is a chessfriend, and we are both Jerome Gambit enthusiasts, but in our ChessWorld tournament game, I had to finish off both him and the Gambit.
blackburne - perrypawnpusher
JG3 thematic, www.chessworld.net, 2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 Qe7
Whistler's defense, perhaps Black's best in the Jerome Gambit, as touched upon in "Flaws (Part II)" and "Beware: Mad Dog!"
Taking the Rook now is fatal.
8.Qxh8 Qxe4+ 9.Kd1 Qxg2 10.Qxh7+ Kf8 11.Re1 d5 12.d4
White needed to move his c-pawn to make an escape hatch for his King, and to meet that goal 12.c4 was a bit better than 12.c3, in that his Knight could subsequently get to c3. Even so, when the smoke cleared Black would be up a piece with the initiative and the safer King.
With the text comes checkmate.
12...Bg4+ 13.Kd2 Qxf2+ 14.Re2 Qxe2+
This is fine, although purists will point out that I missed a quicker mate: 14...Bb4+ 15.Nc3 Qxe2#
15.Kc3 Qc4+ 16.Kd2 Qxd4+ 17.Ke1 Qd1 checkmate
I felt fortunate that the rest of my games in this tournament were far enough along that none of my opponents observed this game and played Whistler's defense against me. In fact, I was quite surprised that no one else played the defense at all!
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