Sunday, July 20, 2008

Rail2Rail by a length

Rail2Rail is poised to win his Jerome Gambit thematic tournament at ChessWorld.
I hope to get him to annotate a game or two. In the meantime I thought I'd present one that illustrates (for me, anyway) some of the attractions of the Jerome Gambit.
Rail2Rail - drewbear JG2 thematic www.chessworld.net, 2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.d3
Modern variation.
5...h6 6.Nc3 Nge7
A new idea in a position he's played before. Is drewbear purposefully playing provocatively?
7.Nxe5+ Nxe5 8.Qh5+ Ke6
It certainly looks that way! A calmer alternative, trading Queens and returning material, was 8...N7g6 9.f4 Qh4+ 10.Qxh4 Nxh4.
9.Bf4
Going for development, but 9.f4 immediately was probably stronger.
9...Bd6
Black's King is away from home, but he certainly isn't lonely! Still, he should have preferred the straight-forward 9...d6
10.d4 N5g6 11.Bxd6 cxd6


Tactical maniacs everywhere should be drooling!
Yet it seems that Black can put his tried-and-true plan of castling-by-hand into place to counter White's aggression: 12.f4 Kf7 13.f5 Rf8 14.0-0 Kg8 15.fxg6 and the second player is at worst even.
12.0–0 Kf7 13.f4 Kg8 14.f5 Nf8

15.Rf3
An aggressive try would be 15.f6 to undermine Black's fortress.
15...b6
Inaccurate, in that it misses the chance to solidify defenses with 15...Nh7, while creating a potential weakness on the a8-h1 diagonal.
16.Rg3 Rh7 17.f6 g6
White's pawn advance is better late than never, and Black slips in his response.
A difficulty in consulting computer programs like Rybka is that it will argue that after 17...Nc6 18.Rf1 g5 19.h4 Black is simply winning. No wonder computer tend to annihilate the Jerome Gambit!
Things now go from bad to worse in short order for the second player.

18.fxe7 Qxe7 19.Qd5+ Ne6 20.Qxa8 Qd8 21.Qd5 Kh8 22.Rf1 Qe7 23.Qa8 Qd8 24.Nb5 Nc7 25.Nxc7 Qxc7 26.Rf8+ Kg7 1–0 

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