The Jerome Gambit Article (Part 4)

Here continues the Jerome Gambit article that I wrote for Kaissiber, a decade ago.

William Cook’s interest in the Jerome Gambit seems to have peaked with his 3^rd edition of Synopsis. Although the 4^th edition, in 1888, announced "The present work is not a mere reprint of the last…” there were no changes in the Jerome Gambit analysis.

 Instead of pursing the Synopsis for a further, 5^th edition, Cook produced The Chess Player’s Compendium, a similarly formatted book, in 1902. There was no mention of the Jerome Gambit within. Likewise, Cook’s The Evolution of the Chess Openings in 1906 had nothing to say about Alonzo Wheeler Jerome’s creation.

It was not yet time for the Gambit’s eclipse. Cook’s earlier collaborators, E. Freeborough and C. E. Rankin, introduced Chess Openings Ancient and Modern in 1889. In their introduction to the Giuoco Piano, they seemed to put the Jerome Gambit in a proper evolutionary perspective.

            Away from the main track there are numerous traps for the

unwary and inexperienced player, but, as a rule, any attempt to hurry

the action will recoil on the attempter. Numerous attempts of this

character have been made at various times. The most interesting of

these are now classified as regular openings, notably the Evans

Gambit, the two Knight’s Defense, and Max Lange’s Attack. The

Jerome Gambit is a modern instance.

 Even if the Jerome Gambit had its own chapter as a regular opening, the tone of the narrative that accompanied the analysis had turned skeptical, and the good humor was generally lacking

The Jerome Gambit is an American invention, and a very risky

attack. It is described in the American Supplement to Cook's Synopsis

as unsound but not to be trifled with. The first player sacrifices two

pieces for two Pawns, and the chances arising from the adversary's

King being displaced and drawn into the centre of the board. "The

defense requires study, and is sometimes difficult." It may be added

that it is equally difficult for the first player to maintain the attack.

After 4…Kxf7; 5.Nxe5 Nxe5; 6.Qh5+, Black may obtain a safe

game by …Kf8 (Col.3), or he may follow out Mr. Steinitz's theory

that "the King is a strong piece which not only possesses great power

for defensive purposes, but can be made use of for the attack early in

the game, with the object of being posted more favourably for the

ending in the center of the board…”

            It is very rarely practiced, but as a similar sacrifice of a minor

Piece for two pawns to stop Black from castling may often occur in

the King’s Knight’s opening, we give the Jerome Gambit as a

representative form of this kind of attack on its merits, showing its

strength and weakness apart from accidental circumstances, which in

actual play may materially affect the result. 

Andres Clemente Vazquez, the Mexican chess champion, who had included one of his Jerome Gambit wins (giving Rook odds) in the second edition of his Analisis del juego de ajedres (1885), offered a much expanded chapter (based largely on the American Supplement) in his 1889 third edition of Analisis.

Moving into the1890s, however, the Jerome Gambit began walking on unsteady ground. Although Gossip included analysis in his new book, The Chess Player’s Vade Mecum (1891), he dropped any mention of the Jerome in the 2nd edition his Theory of the Chess Openings of the same year. (He had ignored it as well in his The Chess Players’ Text Book, written two years earlier.) Chess Openings Ancient and Modern reappeared in 1893 and 1896, but the analysis had nothing new, and was largely repeating itself.

Time suddenly ran out on the Jerome Gambit as the 1890s came to a close, with the publication, in 1899, of Mr. Blackburne’s Games at Chess, which included the game thereafter treated by most sources as the refutation of the attack

Amateur - Blackburne, London,  “about 1880” (notes by

Blackburne) 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ I used to call this

the Kentucky opening. For a while after its introduction it was greatly

favored by certain players, but they soon grew tired of it (Blackburne)

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 d6 Not to be outdone in

generosity 8.Qxh8 Qh4 9.0-0 Nf6 10.c3 Ng4 11.h3 Bxf2+ 12.Kh1 Bf5

13.Qxa8 Qxh3+ 14.gxh3 Bxe4# 0-1

There are a few things wrong with the generally accepted view of Blackburne’s miniature. The game was published at least fourteen years before Mr. Blackburne’s Games at Chess, in the August 1885 issue of the Brooklyn Chess Chronicle. It wasplayed, according to the Chronicle, “some months ago in London” – that is, 5 years later than the “about 1880” that Blackburne recalled. Such an error in memory, from someone who played thousands of games is, of course, quite understandable. 

In addition, the BCC article included suggestions – “he should have attempted to free his pieces by 9.d4 before castling” and “the only hope he had was 10.Qd8,” which would have strengthened White’s game considerably.

This “Blackburne defense” starting with 6…g6 was played by D.P. Norton and Lt. G.N. Whistler, in correspondence games with Jerome back in 1876, and games were published in the June and December issues of the American Chess Journal of that year. Both players offered a Rook, with 7…Qe7 instead of Blackburne’s 7…d6, and developed winning attacks. Three years later, Jerome left the Rook and tried an improvement (8…Qf4+) in a correspondence game with Daniel Jaeger, but he was equally unsuccessful (0-1,45).

Later writers appear to have overlooked or ignored this coverage in the Brooklyn Chess Chronicle and the American Chess Journal.

After the blow of the appearance of the Amateur – Blackburne miniature, it is true that the Jerome Gambit lived on for some years in reprinted editions of previous tomes (for example, fifteen editions of James Mortimer’s The Chess Player’s Pocket-Book and Manual of the Openings, from 1888 through 1906), --although not without embarrassment. Gossip’s analysis in The Chess Player’s Vade Mecum (1891), for example, was re-packaged, unchanged, as a chapter in Gossip and F. J. Lee’s later The Complete Chess Guide (1903, 1905, 1907, 1910) where it appeared after Lee, in one of his own chapters, had asserted

We have therefore eliminated obsolete openings and confined

ourselves merely to a brief examination of a dozen of the leading

debuts...; omitting those openings in which the defense is declared by

the most competent theorists to be weak or inferior, as for example

Philidor's and Petroff's Defenses to the Kings Knight's opening; the

Sicilian; the Greco Counter Gambit; Center Counter Gambit;

Fianchettoes, Blackwar [sic] and Jerome Gambit, etc.

Emmanuel Lasker seems to have had the best, if not the last, word on the gambit, responding to a letter to “Our Question Box” in the March 1906 issue of Lasker’s Chess Magazine

No; the Jerome gambit is not named after St. Jerome. His

penances, if he did any, were in atonement of rather minor

transgressions compared with the gambit.

  

[to be continued]