One reason for the popularity of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) in club play is that it is so bad, opponents do not always take it seriously.
Of course, that is exactly the kind of mental set that leads to disasters such as in the following game.
DientesDDS - erol14
3 0 blitz, lichess.org, 2021
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6
7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 Ng6 9.Qd5+ Ke7 10.Qxc5+ d6 11.Qg5+ Kf7 12.Qxd8 Black resigned
Go ahead and laugh. In this 1800+ player vs 1800+ player game, Black threw away his Queen and his game along with her. True, it was a 3-minute blitz game, but the clock wasn't the issue - the Jerome Gambit just wasn't worth the effort of playing seriously. Ooops...
A few months earlier, DientesDDS faced an opponent who played the more accurate 11...Ke8, and he had to play a dozen more moves before scoring the full point. That's right, another miniature.
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