Godfather of Oz??

I was wandering the Internet the other day, and tumbled onto the ChessExpress blogsite of Shaun Press of  Canberra, Australia. He had an interesting post on a line that has been looked at here – see "Godfather of the Jerome Gambit?" Part I, Part II, Part III and Endnote, and "Hamppe - Meitner Revealed" – even if it's not a Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+)

Sunday, 19 July 2009
A forced win in Blitz

There are certain openings that work better at Blitz than they do at longer time controls. Normally these are trappy lines involving material investment, although sometimes they are so dodgy that the opponent chews up time looking for the immediate refutation.

With the increased popularity of online "bullet' chess (1 0), you now see the Halloween Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5) or the Hiroshima Variation of the Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Qh5) becoming more well known. But there are also the 'classics' that you may need to know.

I watched the post-mortem of a game yesterday involving a very early sac on f2. While I didn't see the game myself, I did see various positions that may have arisen. In the end the conclusion from both players was that it was winning for Black, but mainly due to the fast time control.

While I don't have the game played yesterday, I have another game in the same line, but with the following kicker. Rather than being a forced win, it turns out that it may well be a forced draw, and a draw that has been around for over 100 years.


Villanueva,M (2029) - Gargiulo,L (2222)
LXXVII ch-ARG Tres de Febrero ARG (3), 05.09.2003

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Bc5 3.Na4 Bxf2+ 4.Kxf2 Qh4+ 5.Ke3 Qf4+ 6.Kd3 d5 7.Kc3 Qxe4 8.Kb3 Na6 9.a3 Qxa4+ 10.Kxa4 Nc5+ 11.Kb4 a5+ 12.Kxc5 Ne7 13.Bb5+ Kd8 14.Bc6 b6+ 15.Kb5 Nxc6 16.Kxc6 Bb7+ 17.Kb5 Ba6+ 18.Kc6 Bb7+ 19.Kb5 ½-½