What is "The Database"?

Readers of this Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) have no doubt noticed that I regularly refer to "The Database.

What is "The Database"?

Currently it is a chess games database (using ChessBase) that contains over 75 thousand games and analyses It is currently in ChessBase format, but I can easily produce a pgn database from it.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, the main line Jerome Gambit.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bc5 5.Bxf7+, the Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.0-0 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ and 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.Nc3 Bc5 5.Bxf7+, both variants of the Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.0-0 Bc5 6.Bxf7+, the Semi-Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nxe4 5.Bxf7+, the "Open Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit", or Noa Gambit.

There are 6,388 games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4 4.Bxf7+, The Blackburne Shilling Jerome Gambit.

There are games with the declination 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Na5 4.Bxf7+.

There are games with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+, the Abrahams Jerome Gambit.

That leaves miscellaneous games that are Jerome-related, primarily through an early Bxf7+. 

Besides being a large selection of games to consult or play over, The Database has a reference function. With over 20 years of games from FICS (plus lesser numbers from other sites like lichess.org) - believe me, that took a lot of work in the beginning, downloading games & using the "filter" function & visually inspecting the results - I have a pretty good representative sample (not just wins, but losses and draws as well) of how online club players play the kind of openings this blog covers. 

Players can consult their favorite computer (over the years I have used Crafty, Fritz, Houdini, Komodo, Rybka and Stockfish) to get an "objective" assessment of play, and then they can dip into The Database and see how well the lines have fared in relevant play.

Often the computers look at a line and say "beware", while actual results suggest "dive right in".

For comparison, here are 2 historical "snapshots" of the development of The Database: "My Jerome Gambit Database" and Evolution of "The Database".

If you are interested in a copy of The Database, send me a request via email.