Joker's Wild (1)

This article is by Louis Morin ("mrjoker") of Montreal, Canada. mrjoker is a long-time Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) Gemeinde member, and his games have appeared on this blog numerous times before.

I hope readers enjoy this contribution, especially those who question whether "serious analysis" and "Jerome Gambit' can fairly occupy the same sentence.

I just bought the book Survive & Beat Annoying Chess Openings by Schiller and Watson, because I was eager to read the section entitled "Bashing the Jerome Gambit". Should I say that I am very disappointed? Even though though the authors are strong masters, their piece of analysis is very lousy at best.

Basically, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+

the authors suggest that Black can get a promising position after 6...Ke6 7.f4 Qf6! 8.Nc3 Ne7 9.Rf1 g6 10.Qh3+ Ng4! because the f-file remains closed and White's attack fades away.

I will NOT discuss this position for a very simple reason: it it completely irrelevant!Schiller and Watson simply missed that their suggested 8.Nc3 for White is a losing blunder! Black gets a winning position after the obvious 8...Qxf4 9.d4 Nf6!
(they probably only looked at 9...Qf6 10.d5+ Kd6 11.Nb5+ Ke7 12.Bg5), for example 10.Bxf4 Nxh5 11.Bxe5 Bb6 followed by 12...d6.
White is simply a piece down for a Pawn, with no compensation whatsoever.
Instead of 8.Nc3? losing the f4-pawn and the game, White should play the obvious 8.Rf1, and unfortunately Schiller and Watson do not say how Black should continue. But wait a minute. Suppose Black plays 8...Ne7, then White will answer 9.Nc3 and Black is back in the variation he wants by 9...g6 10.Qh3+ Ng4! etc. Right?

Wrong! After

8.Rf1 Ne7?

White gets a promising game with the simple

9.fxe5 Qxe5 10.Qg4+
and now we see the flaw in 8...Ne7?. Black would like to go back to e7, but unfortunately a Knight is occupying this vital square. So the King has to stay in the center with 10...Kd6. How should White react?

[to be continued]