Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Who's the "Expert"?

The following game made me wonder, who knows the Jerome Gambit better, him or me? The outcome was surely suggestive!

perrypawnpusher - vz721

Italian Game thematic, Chess.com, 2013

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 




4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 




7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 Qf6 9.fxe5+ Qxe5 10.Qf3 Nf6 11.d3




I have sometimes referred to this as the "optical illusion" variation (see here and here for starters) because of the number of times in blitz play that my opponents have relaxed and allowed me to pin their Queen to their King.

In the April 1874 issue of the Dubuque Chess Journal, Alonzo Wheeler Jerome wrote that 11.d3 compelled either King or Queen to move as White threatens Bf4; or Black can play ...g5


He was referring to the game Jerome - Shinkman, Iowa, 1874, which appeared in the July 1874 issue of the DCJ, and indeed, the game continued 11...Ke7 12.Nc3 g5; although after White's 21st move he wrote "and Mr. Shinkman announced loss of the Queen or mate in six moves." Ouch.


11...Ke7 12.Nc3 d6 13.Bf4 


So far, following Jerome - Brownson, Iowa, 1875, (1-0, 43).

13...Qh5


An interesting improvement on Brownson's 13...Qe6, which allowed Jerome to play 14.0-0-0 and then meet 14...Qg4 with 15.Qf1. White doesn't have a great position, but he keeps the Queens on the board.


14.0-0-0 Qxf3 15.gxf3 Be6 16.d4 Bb4 




At first I was happy with my pawn center. It grabs space, and threatens to advance, feeding an attack on the King. However, I decided to "hold" the center, instead, and my pawn chain became frozen - and my opponent started hammering it.


17.d5 Bf7 18.Nb5 Kd7 19.Nd4 Rae8 20.Nf5 Rhg8




21.h4 Bg6 22.Nd4 Nh5 23.Bh2 Bc5 24.Rhe1 Bxd4 25.Rxd4 Rgf8 




All the "dynamic" aspects of the pawn center have been removed.


26.Rd3 Nf4 27.Rd2 Bh5 28.Re3 Ng6 29.Rf2 Nxh4 White resigned




I might have been able to get 30.f4 in here, but that was about as mobile as my center was going to get. It looked like nothing more than suffering to me, so I turned my  attention to my remaining games.


Very nicely played, Vlad! 

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