To Infinity... And Beyond! (Part I)

As a chess opening, the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7?!) has a great future behind it.

Born in the post-Morphy, pre-Steinitz era, it achieved neither the deserved celebrity heaped upon the Evans Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4!?) nor the undeniable fanatical following awarded the Blackmar (later, Blackmar Diemer) Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3; 3.Nc3 & 4.f3).

American chess players were looking for something that they could call their own – ideally, a slashing, crashing attack where White offered material and Black, proper for the times, accepted it, with dire consequences. Alonzo Wheeler Jerome's creation was offered as one possibility.

The Jerome was discussed in magazines and analyzed in opening tomes around the world, and for a short time became relatively well-known – as a not so very good idea.

Truly the duck-billed platypus of chess openings, at least at the level of "serious" chess, the Jerome Gambit today is more of an archeological and anthropological artifact than a rusty weapon awaiting discovery, polishing and honing.

And yet... And yet... And yet...

The story of Jerome's Double Gambit is an interesting one worth telling – and soon it will be told.

(Many thanks to Dan DeHaan, who gave permission to use this fine platypus graphic – he created it for his wife Jenn's fantasy football team, the Paw Paw Platypusses!)