Saturday, January 11, 2020

Jerome Gambit: New Year's Resolution

Image result for free clipart puzzled look

Looking at some of the Jerome Gambit games from 2019 that I have recently added to The Database, I noticed that 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ scored a surprising 57%, up from 52% the previous year.

I suspect that - despite my claims of "representativeness" - The Database may have been slightly skewed by all of the wins last year, scored by angelcamina and Bill Wall. Oh, well.☺

Nonetheless, I still noted over a dozen games starting 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Ng5?!


It turns out that The Database has 564 such games.

Some of you are probably scratching your heads, wondering 
What is that move all about?  Was it a fast time control, and White got ahead of himself? What was his plan?
A closer examination would reveal that only about 3/4 of the time did Black play the indicated (and crushing) 5...Qxg5, which, admittely  allows White to reveal his intentions with 6.d4 - a simultaneous attack on the Black Bishop at c5 and the Queen at g5.

There's not much to White's "attack" after 6...Qxg2, though - in 147 games, White scored only 11%



I would like to argue that this line is too risky, even for a Jerome Gambit player - which is saying a lot.

Maybe a good New Year's resolution would be to stay away from 5.Ng5?!

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