Following up on the previous post, I want to take another dive into the Jerome Gambit archives.
Cheltenham Examiner
Wednesday February 21, 1906 page 6
[Chess notation changed to algebraic]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
This gambit is an American invention (though the actual moves may have been tried before America was discovered, or soon after. But the first-known analysis of their effects was American). It is unsound, but a suitable opening for the better of two players - having the attack - if he wants amusement, or to handicap himself slightly. After ...Kxf7 White could reply 5.d4, to bring his Bishop into action, but this is not as good as
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5
Black can play ...Ke6 or ...Kf8. The latter gives him a safe game, but ...Ke6 should win also, though it often loses when Black is a weak player. That is, often in proportion to the number of games played at this opening, which number is small. Black won the following
6.Qh5+ Ke6
6...Ng6 can be safely played instead, with care.
7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.d4 Bxd4 9.Na3 c6 10.c3 Qf6 11.cxd4 Qxf5 12.exf5 Nf7 13.Bf4+ Ke7
It is always interesting to note under which conditions the Jerome Gambit is considered "playable".
The suggestion, above, of 5...Kf8, is as old as Alonzo Wheeler Jerome's analysis in the March 1874 issue of the Dubuque Chess Journal; and first played in Jerome - Brownson, Iowa, 1875 (1/2 - 1/2, 29).
However, the Cheltenham Examiner article has the first - and only, so far as I have found - recommendation that I have seen for 5...Ke6. The writer's assessment that the move "should win" is a bit optimistic, if White finds 6.Qg4+ Kxe5 7.d4+ Bxd4 8.Bf4+ Kf6 9.Bg5+ Kf7 10.Bxd8, when Black has 3 pieces for a Queen and a pawn, in a complicated position - see Wall,Bill - Guest4105968, PlayChess.com, 2018 (1/2 - 1/2, 50).
Also, the note that "Black won the following" suggests that the line is from a game, not mere analysis (see "Jerome Gambit: Poetry or Prose?"). To date, I haven't found such a game. More research ahead!
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