Jerome Gambit: Defending Against Creativity

The starting position in the "Piano Piano" tournament at Chess.com comes after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5. That gave me 9 opportunities to play the Jerome Gambit (4.Bxf7+) in the first round, and I took advantage of each. I was a bit surprised to find myself facing the Jerome, coming out of an unusual transposition to a "modern" variation of the opening. 

Roland_Bollinger - perrypawnpusher

3d/move, "Piano Piano" tournament, Chess.com, 2020

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d4

The Italian Gambit, explored by Jude Acers and George S. Laven in their book The Italian Gambit System and A Guiding Repertoire for White - 1.e4 (2006).

4...Bxd4 

According to Komodo 10, this is a bit stronger than 4...exd4. The earliest example I have of that move is  Wright - Hunn, Arkansas 1874, which was published in the November 1874 Dubuque Chess Journal.

Related blog posts are "Jerome Gambit: The Improved Face Palm Variation?!" and "The Macbeth Attack".

5.Bxf7+ 

Wow. Suddenly we are in Jerome Gambit territory - and I am defending. This is dangerous stuff for both players.

The Database surprised me with 269 games with this position, although White scored only 22%. 

5...Kxf7 

Interestingly, The Database now has 1,143 games with this position, with White scoring 28%. The increase comes because of the included games with the current move order, and also those arising from a "modern" version (not 5.Nxe5+) of the Jerome Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.d4 Bxd4.

Relevant are the posts "Jerome Gambit: Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time" and "A Whole Lot of Information". 

6.Nxe5+ 

This doesn't work out. A bit better was 6.Nxd4 exd4 and maybe 7.c3.

6...Bxe5 7.Qd5+ Kf8 8.f4

 According to The Database, this is a new move. The attacking idea is clear.

I wanted to develop my extra pieces as quickly as I could.

8...Nge7 9.Qc5 d6 10.Qb5 Bd4 

Escaping the "Jerome pawns" and preventing my opponent from castling.

11.Qc4 d5 12.Qb5 dxe4 

Here, his experiment having gone awry, White allowed his clock to run down and lose on time.

Now, it's my turn to play the Jerome Gambit against him.

(It did not turn out that way after all. The game went 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Black lost on time. Sigh.)