The Jerome Gambit Article (Part 5)

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

Mention of the Jerome Gambit in chess books, thereafter, is sporadic, usually simply as the name of the opening played in a Blackburne miniature (perhaps with a suggested move or two); but sometimes serving as part of a dire warning, as in Chernev and Harkness’s An Invitation to Chess (1945) “Mistakes in the Opening” chapter, or Gerald Abrahams’ The Chess Mind (1951)

...Objectively regarded, every winning position, and every

losing position, is an unbalanced position; a position in which a

player has a great advantage in tempo, or in space, or in the capacity

to bring great force to bear effectively on a given point…

Chess opinion has convincingly condemned many extravagant

unbalancing attacks, such as the once popular Jerome gambit…which

yield the unbalancer nothing but loss against good defense.

Still, there were exceptions. Fletcher’s wonderful Gambit’s Accepted, A Survey of Opening Sacrifices (1954) included the Jerome Gambit, and his selection of the example Club Game “Anonymous – Anonymous” impishly suggested a need to shelter from public scrutiny those who would play such openings

Every inventor must have considered his gambit as a winning

one, so in this Part all gambits are won by White, and all counter

gambits by Black. One game for each of the eighty-four openings is

included, being numbered according to the classification tabulated in

Part I, and, as far as possible, short games have been selected from

master play. This was not as easy as might be imagined, for so often

an otherwise suitable tournament or match game was not won by the

proper colour required for our purpose. In several cases, therefore, it

has been necessary to search for games outside first-class circles, and,

in the thirteen selections when this has been done, the names of the

players have been suppressed and the contest given as a Club Game.

            Fletcher also tossed out 9.d4 as a possible counter to Blackburne’s refutation of the Jerome Gambit, and even included the over-familiar

The opening is frankly unsound but Black's task is by no

means easy and he can quite likely go wrong

Harding dismissed the Jerome Gambit in the 1970s, Zuckerman touched briefly on the Jerome in a column in Chess Life in the early 1980s, Gambit Revue had an article on it in the late 1980s, and Randspringer had one in the early 1990s. Tim Harding again made a passing reference in 2001 to “the manic Jerome Gambit” in his 4-part series on the Giuoco Piano in his “The Kibitzer” column at the on-line ChessCafe (www.chesscafe.com).

That the Jerome Gambit’s status had descended of late to being the representation of bad form is illustrated by a couple of Internet newsgroup postings

Even the Jerome Gambit, which is probably the worst

recognized gambit in all of chess, does offer some reasons for

analysis. However, this sequence of moves you give here is

simply a blunder with no redeeming social value...

  Even if the raison d'etre for the committee is deader than the Jerome Gambit...

In the last few years, however the Jerome Gambit has been rescued from obscurity by Eric Schiller, who covered it in his Unorthodox Chess Openings (1998, 2002), Gambit Chess Openings (2002), and Survive and Beat Annoying Chess Openings (2003). He gave a little of what is rare - new analysis in the last 50 years - but his attitude was less tongue-in-cheek than thumb-in-eye.

This is another cyberspace gambit. Virtually no attention

was paid to this reckless move [4.Bxf7+] until its supporters started

talking about it on the Internet. It can't be found in recent tournament

games, and there is a good reason: It stinks. White whips up a brief

attack, easily parried, and then spends a long time trying to justify the

sacrifice. A popular gambit in cyberspace, but in the real world, it

only succeeds in games where Black is a very weak player.

Schiller noted, quite accurately, that the Jerome Gambit is “awaiting a hero!”

No more respectful, but infinitely more entertaining, is IM Geoff Chandler’s 2004 Internet send-up of the Blackburne game as being played by Mars vs. Earth, “annotated” with pictures from the infamous 1962 bubble-gum card series, “Mars Attacks!” In that same year, openings iconoclast 

Brian Wall, and his protégé Tyrin Price, published a definitive analysis of Whistler’s defense to the Jerome Gambit (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/BrianWallChess/message/80 ) In passing it can be noted that Price’s opinion of the Jerome returns the proper humorous perspective

The Jerome Gambit ... now *that* is coffee house ... fully caffeinated - extra strength (use only as directed for prompt temporary relief of quiet games [if conditions persist seek professional guidance]). :-)

Most recently, International Master Gary Lane has been entertaining Jerome Gambit

questions from readers of his “Opening Lanes” ChessCafe column (http://www.chesscafe.com/lane/lane.htm), and went so far as to annotate an amateur’s game. The discovery of the serious Yettman-Farmer, Arizonza, USA 2006 Jerome Gambit match (see box) shows that, however feeble, the Jerome Gambit still lives!

[to be continued]