Welcome to the World of Wall

Of late, Bill Wall (see Chessville's "Bill Wall's Wonderful World of Chess") has been investigating the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) and other Jerome-ish openings.

I've had fun playing over a number of his games and have decided to present several, starting in his pre-Jerome Gambit era. Even early on, his brand of wild, brash and outrageous play had some Jerome-ish tinges to it.

Watt,B - Wall

Taylorsville, NC, 1975

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Bc5

Having his own ideas, but this was too much for his opponent to sit still and take.

3.Na4

Cue the scary violin music: we have seen this before in "Godfather of the Jerome Gambit? Part I, Part II, Part III", "Godfather of Oz??" and "Hamppe - Meitner Revealed".

3...Bxf2+ 4.Kxf2 Qh4+

5.Ke3 Qf4+ 6.Kd3

6...Nf6

Hampe - Meitner, Vienna, 1870 continued 6...d5 7.Kc3 Qxe4 8.Kb3 Na6 9.a3 Qxa4+ 10.Kxa4 Nc5+ 11.Kb4 a5+ 12.Kxc5 Ne7 13.Bb5+ Kd8 14.Bc6 b6+ 15.Kb5 Nxc6 16.Kxc6 Bb7+ 17.Kb5 Ba6+ draw

7.Nc3

In the September 2002 issue of Chess Life, Grandmaster Andy Soltis suggested 7.Qf3 as an improvement in this line. (I have no idea if he was familiar with Bill's game here.)

7...d5

8.Qe1

Understandably faltering under pressure. Rybka suggests that White could find his way to a balanced game with: 8.Qf3 dxe4+ 9.Nxe4 Bf5 10.Qxf4 exf4 11.Ke2 Nxe4 12.d3 Nf6 13.Bxf4 Nc6 14.Nf3 0-0-0 15.Re1 Nd5 16.Bg3 Ndb4

analysis diagram





8...dxe4+ 9.Kc4 e3+

It's "open season" on Kings...

10.Kb3 Nc6 11.a3 Be6+ White resigned