Saturday, June 21, 2008

Were they talking about the Jerome Gambit or...?


Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty – Dominic Lawson

This is totally unsound and should never be tried! – Raymond Keene

Some part of a mistake is always correct – Savielly Tartakover

What would Chess be without silly mistakes? – Kurt Richter

The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake – Savielly Tartakover

Without error there can be no brilliancy – Emanuel Lasker

Some sacrifices are sound; the rest are mine – Mikhail Tal

We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for sacrifices is part of a Chessplayer's nature – Rudolf Spielman

What is the object of playing a gambit opening? To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing the game – Siegbert Tarrasch

In the laboratory, gambits all test unfavorably; but the old rule wears well, that all gambits are sound over the board – William Napier

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one – Mikhail Tal

The delight in gambits is a sign of chess youth. In very much the same way as the young man, on reaching his manhood years, lays aside the Indian stories and stories of adventure, and turns to the psychological novel, we with maturing experience leave off gambit playing and become interested in the less vivacious but withal more forceful maneuvers of the position player – Emanuel Lasker

A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused – Rudolph Spielmann

A player surprised is half beaten – Proverb

You need not play well - just help your opponent to play badly – Genrikh Chepukaitis

Later, I began to succeed in decisive games. Perhaps because I realized a very simple truth: not only was I worried, but also my opponent – Mikhail Tal

A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror – Wilhelm Steinitz

The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made – Savielly Tartakover

Adequate compensation for a sacrifice is having a sound combination leading to a winning position; adequate compensation for a blunder is having your opponent snatch defeat from the jaws of victory – Bruce A. Moon

No; the Jerome gambit is not named after St. Jerome. His penances, if he did any, were in atonement of rather minor transgressions compared with the gambit – Emanuel Lasker


(Thanks to chess-poster.com for their cache of chess quotes.)

2 comments:

  1. Hi Rick,

    It's great to see a new site dedicated to the Jerome. I play it quite a lot on the Internet and in friendly games.

    Below is a link to a game I played a few years ago. You'd know better than me, but as far as I know it's the only modern game to feature the gambit in a graded OTB game. It's not great chess, but I'm only an average club player, and the Jerome wins!

    The game recently featured on Gary Lane's ChessCafe site, but it's given below with my own notes (from my club's website).

    http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/halesowenchessclub/pbvrees.htm

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  2. Hi Pete,

    Thanks for stopping by!

    I think readers will enjoy your game against Rees (although it seems that the link to the older ChessHistory site you give in your notes is no longer active; pity).

    As GM Gary Lane (http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lane111.pdf)and you note, over-the-board games with the Jerome Gambit are quite scarce. I'll touch on this in a later post.

    In the meantimee: keep sacc'ing!

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