Study the Classics

Serious chess players studying serious chess openings are often encouraged to study the classic games that illustrate thematic play. 

Likewise, less-than-serious chess players studying less-than-serious chess openings - the Jerome Gambit comes immediately to mind - still would benefit from studying the "classic" games from that line of play.

(That brings to mind an interesting challenge: what are the "classic" games in the Jerome Gambit praxis? Certainly this is fodder for discussion and a series of posts later on in the year.)

Ôèëèäîð1792 - Guest 543
www.bereg.ru, 2013

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6

8.d4 Bxd4 9.Bg5 

This move comes from the classic game Tonetti - Ruggieri, Rome, 1863 (1-0, 23), which no doubt thrilled - or, at least, amused -  chess players around the world.

The alternative, 9.Na3, was seen in the earlier Jerome - Norton, correspondence, 1877 (0-1, 41); and updated in "An Intriguing Letter" Parts 1, 2 & 3 and "Some History of the Jerome Gambit" Parts 1 & 3.

9...Ne7 

This is a significant improvement over Ruggeri's 9...Nf6. Guest 543 has passed his first test.

10.Bxe7+ Qxe7 11.c3 Nd3+ 12.Kd2 Nxf2

Black is "winning all over the place" - but, didn't he forget something??

13.Qd5 checkmate

Oh, yeah, that's right...