The Mysterious kingmaple

In yesterday's post (see "King of the Hill") I mentioned that the player kingmaple had 619 entries in the updated 18,000 game New Year's Database of Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+), Blackburne Shilling Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4 4.Bxf7+), and Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.0-0/4.Nc3/4.d3 Bc5 5.Bxf7+) games – and yet he had not been mentioned previously in any post on this blog.

A closer examination of kingmaple's games shows why: he plays a variation of the Scotch Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.c3 dxc3 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Qd5+) which can arise, after a fashion, from a "modern" form of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.d4 exd4 6.c3 dxc3 7.Qd5+).

(Of course, Black and White have alternative ways of playing in both the Scotch Gambit and the Jerome Gambit that would not lead to this position.)

In my researching, kingmaple's efforts got scooped up with the other Jerome Gambit and Jerome-ish games.

Readers who find this position interesting and who would like to follow in kingmaple's footsteps can start by checking out two "Kibitzer" columns on the Scotch Gambit (1, 2) by ICCF Senior IM Tim Harding in the Archives at ChessCafe.