Ruy Lopez Jerome Gambit??

Still puzzled and a bit impressed by the opening that Pigjuice sprung on me yesterday (see "...or should they?") I did a Google search, and much to my surprise ran across the following as part of a discussion of the Exchange Ruy Lopez at ChessGames.com

Nov-13-04 drukenknight: Spanish Exchange (N sack on f7). You know w/ my new "back to the basics" approach to chess, I decided to start looking into the exchange spanish, but it seems pretty freakin stupid. I always want to grab that pawn on e5 but it never seems to work out, but wait a minute! WHy can't white simply sack the N on f7 and gain 2 pawns and go on the attack? What could be more basic than that.....?

"No, stupid moron, you cant do that, no one does that, look here stupid...

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bb5 a6
4.Bxc6 dxc6
5.Nxe5 Qd4
6.Nxf7 Kxf7
7.Qf3+ Qf6
8.Qb3+ Qe6
9.Qf3+ Nf6
10.d3 Bd6
11.Bf4 Bxf4
12.Qxf4 Qe7
13.00


Errh well maybe it's bad, but hey what about this...?


1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bb5 a6
4.Bxc6 dxc6
5.Nxe5 Qd4
6.Nxf7 Kxf7
7.d3 Nf6
8.c3 Qe5
9.O-O Bd6
10.f4 Qb5
11.e5


chesslab computer takes black and starts rating it at -2.5 (me so stupid) and then comes almost back to equality, that's odd...


Then I tried another version with an insane K march courtesy of the metal monster, don’t ask me I'm even more confused then ever after....


1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bb5 a6
4.Bxc6 dxc6
5.Nxe5 Qd4
6.Nxf7 Kxf7
7.Qf3+ Qf6
8.Qg3 Bd6
9.Qb3+ Kg6
10.h4 Kh5


Maybe evaluation of this depends on how good your computer assistant is.

So maybe the Knight sacrifice in the Ruy Lopez Exchange line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5 Qd4 6.Nxf7

wasn't something that Pigjuice had made up on the spur of the moment, I wondered.

I checked the FICS games database and found three more games by Pigjuice with that line. Interesting... "Malice aforethought" as they say.

In fact, in the last three months of play at FICS the sac had been played over 200 times. That was "something" but I wasn't exactly sure what kind of "something" – for example, White scored under 20% in those games...

More investigation is needed.



graphic by Jeff Bucchino, the Wizard of Draws