Jerome Gambit. "Swindle". But I Repeat Myself.

The following game is my first completed Jerome Gambit from the ongoing Chess.com "Giuoco Piano Tournament" (3 days/move). I got rattled by early comments by my opponent, veered off into a variation I was unfamiliar with, and was only able to survive because of a "swindle" - which sounds like the standard tale when White wins in this opening, anyhow.

perrypawnpusher - shalloworange
"Giuoco Piano Tournament", Chess.com, 2016

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Bxf7+

At this point I received a message from my opponent

Hello Rick, I think you just taught me a lesson about how to handle games with weaker opponents (just give them 'material odds' by choosing play accordingly). So thank you for the lesson, let's have fun. (Unless I am completely misreading things, in which case at least you will be having fun about this comment  :-)  )

My response was pretty straight-forward, but I suspected that someone who understood my giving "Jerome Gambit odds" might be prepared for a fight. 

I don't think I know enough chess to teach anyone a lesson. I just finished a tournament with lots of serious chess and I would like to have some fun in this one.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+Kd6 8.Nc3

I usually play f2-f4 here, but, like I said above, I was a bit spooked, so I decided to play something even further off of the beaten path.

8...c6 9.d4 Bxd4 10.Bf4

Here I have to admit, as I have in the past, that I do not always share everything that I have discovered about the Jerome Gambit.

Some of it is out of respect: go back to earlier blog posts to some of the games played by the top Jerome Gambiteers, and you will see that frequently they are thinly annotated by me. Who am I to publicly judge MrJoker, Philidor 1792, Bill Wall - and a host of other brighter (than me) lights?

Including Geoff Chandler ("greenpawn34"), who once played 10.Be3 here greenpawn34 - Homedepotov, redhotpawn.com, 2008 (1/2-1/2, 22)

10...Qf6 11.O-O-O Qxf5 12.Rxd4+ Kc5

I again exchanged messages with my opponent.

Er, um... I did not expect you to go after the rook. This will take some thought (auto complete [on my phone] suggested "meds"?!).

His response

Quite openly: I was entertaining also Ke6, and that is probably what I would have played against an equal opponent because I thought that Ke6 would probably be a relatively safe way to keep some material advantage. But hey, you said you wanted to have fun and I am all for having fun, too :-)

I was surprised by my opponent's move because it seemed dangerous for Black to advance his King like that.

13.Be3

Wow! A Queen sac!?

No, no, no, no, no.

Merely a swindle.

Once I found the move, I worked through every move by Black's Queen in response, and eventually was convinced that they would all lead to checkmate.

13...Qe6 14.Rd5+ Kc4 15.Rc5+ Black resigned

It is checkmate the next move.

I am just the kind of guy who looks like he would protect a Rook, overlooking the fact that he should complete the exchange of Queens instead.

Just the kind of guy who would play the Jerome Gambit.

But, let's be fair. If Black had played 13...Kb6 instead of moving Her Majesty, I would have had nothing better to play than 14.exf5, recapturing the Queen, after all.

We would then have been back to debating if the two extra White "Jerome pawns" balanced out the extra Black piece.

But, I appreciate shalloworange's willingness to contribute to a fun game. Well, at least it was fun for me.