Should Have Known About This Blog

Even a little bit of knowledge can be a good thing, if it is properly applied. If it is missing - things change.

The following is from an ongoing game - the players will go unnamed - from the ongoing "Giuoco Piano Jerome Gambit Tournament" at RedHotPawn.com.


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Bxd4 7.Qxd4 Qf6 

This position should feel familiar, if you read the recent post "Again, 'Why Did He Play That Move?' " or are able to recall '"Why Did He Play That Move?"

I feel a bit disappointed that both players seem to have missed that content.

8.O-O b6

Instead, Black had the crushing 8...Nf3+, winning White's Queen on the next move.

(In all fairness, I have to report that the position appears in The Database 40 times, and Black found 8...Nf3+ only 13 times, an unhappy 32.5%. It is important to recall that we are in the land of online club play, not grandmaster gladiator duels. Also, not everyone reads this blog - yet.)

8.Nc3 c5

Ouch. Again, the move to play was 8...Nf3+ with a winning game.

10.Qd5+ 

White will win a Rook now.

This game has continued a couple dozen more moves. White is currently up an insurmountable amount of material and should win by checkmate quickly.

What an unfortunate outcome, given that the defender missed an opportunity to be up a whole Queen early on in the game.

Again, we must congratulate the Jerome Gambit player, even as we recall the old saying "It is better to be lucky than to be good".