Exploring the Evans Jerome Gambit

Once again, the email box brings some interesting news from our regular correspondent in the United Kingdom, David Black. This time he has plucked an idea from the early history of the Jerome Gambit, the invention (as far as I know) of Henry Charlick (of 1.d4 e5 fame), the Evans Jerome Gambit. There is much, much more to be discovered in this line ("Hoist by my own petard..." is one primitive example).

Hiya Rick,

I have a very interesting game for you here that needs a bit of an explanation.

This online program is at http://www.chess.com/play/computer.html and it's a different beast from the ill fated Boris. It's easy to set-up Jerome type positions and has a number of settings from beginner to expert. In your latest blog you mentioned the Evans gambit and that gave me an idea (which may or may not have been tried before... I don't know).

The Evans starts 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4... After 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3, the Bishop must move or be captured. The 2nd most popular retreat is 5...Bc5 in this position, so I wondered what would happen if I applied the Jerome treatment to this line. Worth mentioning that the "expert" setting takes a little while to make it's moves although I tried to play blitz-ish.


Black,D - Computer - Hard 

Chess.com, 24.05.2012

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Nxe5+ Nxe5 8.d4 Qh4 9.0-0 Ne7 10.Qb3+ d5 11.dxe5 Qxe4 12.Nd2 Qxe5 13.Nf3 Qd6 14.Bb2 Qb6 15.Qc2 Bf5 16.Ne5+ Ke6 17.Qe2 Be4 18.c4 Bd4 19.cxd5+ Kxe5 20.Bxd4+ Qxd4 21.Rad1 Qb4 22.f3 Nxd5 23.fxe4 Qxe4 24.Qh5+ Kd6 25.Rfe1 g6 26.Qg5 Qxe1+ 27.Rxe1 Rhe8 28.Rd1 c6 29.Qf6+ Re6 30.Qf7 Re7 31.Qf6+ Kd7 32.Qb2 b6 33.Qb3 Rf8 34.a4 Rf4 35.g3 Rfe4 36.a5 R7e5 37.axb6 axb6 38.Qa3 Re7 39.Kg2 b5 40.Qb3 Kd6 41.Qa3+ b4 42.Qa6

Now unfortunately I had to quit the game here as something came up. The computer certainly seems to have a big advantage but maybe not enough to escape a perpetual? Looks like there is a lot of mileage in this variation although I  don't know if it falls under the scope of your blog.