An Intriguing Letter (Part 1)

I recently received an email from chessfriend Филидор1792 ("Philidor 1792") that got me thinking about a whole lot of things in the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) universe – kind of like setting off a whole string of fireworks in my brain. This happened not too long ago (after another letter from Филидор1792) with the series of posts "Where Do Ideas Come From?" Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so I knew that I was headed off on another adventure!

First, the letter

Hi,

There is some stuff, that may be interesting. When I was reading the article on Jerome Gambit in Wikipedia I noticed that the move 9.Na3 [1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.d4 Bxd4] that is mentioned there with reference to Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern (1896) by Freeborough and Ranken is not represented on your blog (probably I missed it). So I decided to check it with a friend of mine. White happened to win both games, though in second one it was lost.

Thanks for your time. I wish you Happy New Year

To start off: Wikipedia articles do not often link to blogs, but the Jerome Gambit article does – to this blog, of course.

Also, while Wikipedia does not have an article on Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern, itself, it does have an article on author Edward Freeborough (that is the link that I added to Филидор1792's letter). I was surprised to see that one of the references the Freeborough article gives is to a review of Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern – by yours truly. It's a small universe.