A Jerome Discovery (Part 1)

In early 1900, the chess columnist for the weekly magazine The Literary Digest received a suggestion to play a "composite game." The idea was "to have 30 or 40 players on a side; each player having a number, representing the number of the move he is to make."

"While" [the correspondent] says, "the game would not prove anything as to the merits of the respective sides, it would be a curiosity of Chess."

The suggestion was mentioned on March 10. A rallying cry was given two weeks later, as only 20 players had so far signed up.

By April 21, however, "about seventy" players, "from California to New York; from Louisiana to Vermont; from Texas to Wisconsin" had offered to take part.

On May 5 the teams were announced, and the following week the curious game began, a Ruy Lopez, Berlin variation.

This experiment may have inspired Alonzo Wheeler Jerome, as the June 9 issue of The Literary Digest contained the following [notation changed from descriptive to algebraic]

A Consultation Game

We begin a series of games to-day which ought to be interesting and instructive. The special features are these:

(1) The move to be made will be that of the majority; (2) Notes or comments by the players and others. As the first of these games we give the opening moves of the Jerome Gambit. The author of this Opening, Mr. A. W. Jerome, Springfield, Ill., writes that in offering this Opening he has an interested motive, i.e., to test the soundness of the Gambit, and to furnish a bushel, perhaps five pecks, of fun.

The Jerome Gambit

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4

As Mr. J. says, "Here is where the fun begins." We will give the first of the comments:

(a) This is a very risky opening and can not win against a player of equal strength. At the same time, Black must make the proper defense. In all games of this kind, White, in a sense, presupposes that black will make a false move.

Send Black's 6th move, with reasons for making it.