Adolf Albin Plays the Jerome Gambit (Part 1)

With the miracle of chess opening transpositions, and the inclusiveness of the "modern" variations of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+), a bit of chess revisionism is hardly difficult to perform at all...

The Modern Jerome Gambit

The "Modern" Jerome Gambit – so-called because it was not seen during the days of Alonzo Wheeler Jerome, and has only recently (within the last 10 - 15 years) appeared – can be classified as "1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Not-Nxe5+":

5.0-0, 5.Nc3, 5.d3, 5.a3, 5.h3, 5.Qe2, etc. All of those fifth moves for White can be safely submitted to chess analysis engines and all will receive a "better" score than 5.Nxe5+.

Let's take a look at 5.Qe2: it received attention as the backbone of GladtoMateYou's play (see "Home Cooking") with White in the current Chessworld Jerome Gambit Thematic Tournament. As Black's response, let's give the reasonable 5...Nf6.

And now a bit of a historical digression...

According to the August 1895 issue of the British Chess Magazine, the cities of Brandfort and Bloemfontein, South Africa, played a game of correspondence chess that year. It began 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qe2 d6, and James Mason (writing for the BCM) wrote

Better 4...Nf6. There would be plenty of time to play the Pawn - perhaps two squares instead of one. For, as the Cape Times remarks, if White adopts the "Jerome Gambit" 5.Bxf7+ Black replies 5...Kxf7 6.Qc4+ d5 7.Qxc5 Nxe4 with advantage.

(It should be noted that despite Mason's assessment, GladtoMateYou won 3 of the 4 games in the Thematic Tournament that reached that position after 7 moves.)

We are now ready to proceed to Albin - Schlechter, Trebitsch Memorial Memorial Tournament, Vienna, 1914.

In the next post, that is...