Saturday, November 6, 2021

Jerome Gambit: Declining the Second Piece


One way for a defender to deal with sacrifices is to decline them. This goes against the old adage that The best way to refute a gambit is to accept it but it does have the psychological advantage of possibly frustrating the attacker.

The following game shows White attacking steadily, and Black struggling to keep up.


Littleplayerparis - CHR-ONO

3 2 blitz, lichess.org, 2021

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Ke8 

Black figures that accepting the gift of one piece is enough. It is an interesting decision. Komodo 12 assesses White as being about 1/2 of a pawn better, but The Database shows White scoring 75% in 132 games.

6.Qh5+ Ke7 

The way to combat White's Queen incursion (the alternate 6.Nxc6 was best) was 6...g6 7.Nxg6 Bxf2+ (the Bishop is lost, might as well get a pawn for it and displace White's King) 8.Kxf2 Nf6 9.Qh4 Rg8 10.Rf1 Rxg6 11.Kg1 Qe7 when the battle around f6 will continue, with Black a little bit better.

7.Qf7+ Kd6 8.Nc4 checkmate





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