Falling off the Wall

Bill Wall likes his opponents scrambled, Humpty Dumpty style.

Sometimes they need a push.

Sometimes they jump.

Wall,B - SavenRain
chess.com, 2010

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nb4

4.Bxf7+

Adding the Jerome treatment. Of course, ordinary moves like 4.0-0, 4.d4 and 4.Nc3 were playable, too.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+

5...Kf6

Safer seems 5...Ke8, when either 6.0-0 or 6.d4 would give Black the edge he would have in some Blackburne Shilling Gambit Jerome-ish lines.

6.d4

This position requires some care for Black to hold.

First, he must acknowledge that lining his King and Queen up on the same diagonal is too much of a risk: however psychologically uncomfortable it is, Black must move his King again, to e7, to allow his Knight to block any attempt at skewering the royal couple (i.e. Bc1-g5).

Second, he has to stay away from routine moves, such as 6...Ke7 7.a3 Nc6 (the Knight should go to a6) when 8.Bg5+ Nf6 9.Nc3 (heading for d5) is more trouble than it first appears.

analysis diagram






6...Qe7

As is often the case with the Jerome Gambit, the annotations are about subtlety while the moves themselves are lummoxes.

7.Qf3+ Ke6 8.d5+

Taking the Knight now leads to mate.

8...Kd6 9.Nc4+ Kc5 10.Nba3 Black resigned

10...Nxc2+ will hold off checkmate, but not for long.