Jerome Gambit: Which Tier? Unbreakable?

 

In a previous post, I mentioned that in a light-hearted YouTube video, GM Hikaru Nakamura and IM Levy Rozman assessed different chess openings and assigned them to different levels in a tier.

Oh, and GM Nakamura, in assembling an "Intermediate Opening Tier List", bypassed "Legendary", "Solid", "Legit", and "Maybe Not", to place the Jerome Gambit in "Tricks Only" - above "Garbage" because, as he said, "I don't think it loses by force".

It should not be surprising that their "Chess Opening Tier List for the Grandmaster Level" places the Jerome Gambit at the very bottom of the "Garbage" tier. Despite GM Nakamura's blitz win with the Jerome, against another grandmaster, the opening is too sketchy for top level play.

However, the "Beginners Chess Opening Tier List" (thank you for the tip, Yury Bukayev) is a whole different thing - as is the play of beginners, of course. Where to place the Jerome Gambit, amont "Legendary", "Unbreakable", "Legit", "Really, Bro", "Tricks Only" and "Garbage"?

As IM Rozman opined

This was not very good when grandmasters were involved, but at the beginner level... obviously there's Only Tricks if Black plays the right way, but, man... it might be a bottom tier "Legit" opening... I mean, it could be "Really, Bro", it could be because I feel like soon everybody is going to know about it.

GM Nakamura responded 

This is true. Once everybody knows about it, it won't be as good... as it has been. Like, I don't know, I really don't know where it goes... 'Cause for now it's really something not not not known. I think once people... actually get a chance to look at it and study it they will realize it loses by force. I think I'm going to put it... It's going to go fairly high. I think I am going to put it right near the top of Unbreakable for now. It's pretty good. Actually, it can't go below the Fried Liver. I put it in second in the Unbreakable tier. I think it ranks pretty highly, I do... Oh, you disagree, Levy?... I don't know. I don't think I can put it in Legendary. Um I think it has to go right near the top of Unbreakable though.

This discussion reminds me of an early blog post, "But - Is this stuff playable??", (where I reframed the question  as "Under what conditions might the Jerome Gambit be playable?") and "Yes, The Jerome Gambit is Playable".

Of course, every Jerome Gambit game these days is a debate about the playability of the opening, and many Readers have demonstrated that the answer is often, "Yes, indeed."