A review of Chess Openings (4th edition), published in The Athenaeum of March 5, 1910, includes the following, which coincidentally touches upon the attraction of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+)
...Chess, however, is a diversion as well as a science, and we think it likely that a well-selected series of amateur games would afford more exhilaration to the average player than the professional display of to-day, faultily faultless, and splendly dull.
...Professionalism, as in other games, such as cricket and football, has an unfortunate influence on freedom of play, the use of the unexpected or hazardous as a means of attack... A player, if he is a professional, is hampered by the fact that he cannot run the risks common to the amateur. His reputation, which is his livelihood, is at stake; he must not lose, if he cannot win; and so we see a series of drawn games of little interest and less enterprise.
The work has been done with utmost care and accuracy, and affords a complete summary of the first thirty moves or so in every opening a player is likely to adopt, not excluding such rash gambits as the Danish, and the Jerome Gambit, in which actually two pieces are sacrificed for two pawns. The latter is an American invention, and, though less admirable than some other novelties from the country of Morphy and Pillsbury, is typical of a freedom from convention which is all for the good of the game. " O! for one hour of Morphy!" we have heard even the enthusiast exclaim after plodding through a hundred moves or so by two masters in which the advantage of a single pawn in a "close game" is at last made into something tangible. The analysis of openings, especially in Germany, is studied with wonderful persistence, but it seems to engender a timidity in the middle and end game which is disappointing to the onlooker...
No comments:
Post a Comment