Joker's Wild (conclusion)

We conclude an article (see "Joker's Wild (1)" and "Joker's Wild (2)") by Louis Morin ("mrjoker") of Montreal, Canada, a long-time Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) Gemeinde member. He completes his response to the "Bashing the Jerome Gambit" chapter in Schiller and Watson's Survive & Beat Annoying Chess Openings (2003), and your editor has a few words to add.

17.b5! Kb6

17...Kxb5?? 18.Qd3+ is completely hopeless for Black. Try it!

18.Qd3! c6

19.Nc4+ Kc7 20.Nxd6

with much the better game for White. So after their suggested 6...Ke6 7.f4 Qf6! Schiller and Watson should have seen the obvious 8.Rf1 and analyzed reasonable moves such as 8...g6 or 8...Nd3+ (best in my opinion). But as it is their "piece of analysis" does not teach us very much. One can only wonder if the rest of the book has the same pedagogical value.

Louis Morin (mrjoker)
Montreal, Canada

It is likely that the analysis in "Bashing the Jerome Gambit" is Eric Schiller's work, as it is largely a repeat of his analysis given in Unorthodox Chess Openings (1998, 2002) and Gambit Chess Openings (2002). Other analysis in Survive & Beat Annoying Chess Openings is more reliable – I am thinking of the coverage of the Danish Gambit, for example.

Here's a game that shares the first 8 moves with the above analysis, although Black varies with 8...g6: mrjoker - jmt (1516), blitz, ICC, 2008,1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.f4 Qf6 8.Rf1 g6 9.Qh3+ Ng4 10.Qxg4+ Ke7 11.Qe2 Qd4 12.c3 Qg7 13.d4 Bb6 14.g4 d6 15.f5 g5 16.e5 dxe5 17.dxe5 Kd8 18.f6 Qf7 19.Bxg5 h6 20.Bh4 Be6 21.Nd2 Kc8 22.b3 a6 23.Ne4 Kb8 24.0-0-0 Ka7 25.c4 Ba5 26.Kb2 Rb8 27.Bf2+ Ka8 28.Nc5 Bb6 29.Qe4 Black resigned