Jerome Gambit: The Return of Cliff Hardy (Addendum)

 

I was able to find on TwitchTV a video including the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) game between "Cliff Hardy" and Grandmaster Martin Kraemer (playing under the handle DrawDenied_Twitch) covered in the last 3 posts (1, 2, 3).

Although I speak French like a Spanish cow, my German is even weaker - having picked up what little I know mostly from Randspringer magazines - so Grandmaster Kraemer's German language commentary and the chat in the background is best appreciated by those who sprechen deutsche.

I was able to note someone in the chat during the early moves of the game labelling Cliff Hardy as ein Trickspeiler - a trickster - which seems appropriate for someone who plays the Jerome Gambit.

Eventually there was the chat comment, Now I have it: it is the Jerome-Gambit. (Thank you, Google Translate.)

As Cliff commented to me

I even made out a tiny bit of English which explained a couple of his feelings on the moves. He said, "Easy peasy" when I allowed 26...Bg4+, which I guess was justified and "idiot" when I had the chance to win a piece with 36.Rf5+.

There was also a chat reference to Grandmaster Aman Hambleton, whose YouTube video on the Jerome  has  had almost 3/4 million views - pretty impressive. 

In the Twitch TV video, I watched with excitment as the grandmaster's clock ran down almost to zero. Would he escape a time forfeit? I watched a second time, again expecting him to flag. It was like the old joke 

Two friends decide to go to the movies together. The picture had a scene with a horse race in it. Before the race starts, one friend turns to the other and says "I'll bet you fifty dollars the black horse wins." The second friend says "OK, you're on!" The scene ends with the black horse barely winning, so the loser pays up. The second friend decides to confess; "I have to admit that I saw this movie last week." The first replies, "So did I, but I didn't think that black horse could possibly win a second time!"