Jerome Gambit: Ultimate Guide

I suspect that some Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bf7+) players occasionally choose quieter lines of play, and to that end it is interesting that 365chess.com presents the helpful "Ultimate Guide to Winning with the Italian Game".

The Jerome is mentioned, and the focus is appropriately skeptical, of course

The Jerome Gambit is just wild.... 

Only mad people or romantics can play this chess opening. 

Fair enough. I would opt for "romantic".

The clock is also an issue

It is especially effective in bullet or blitz time controls.

However, it’s not that good in classical because if Black plays correctly, then it can maintain a steady advantage throughout the game.

There are practical factors, however

But… it’s not that simple to play against the Jerome Gambit.  

Let’s see the correct way to do it and the incorrect way of playing it.

This is the correct way: 

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Qh4 7.O-O Qxe4 8.dxc5 Nf6

It is at this point that I became confused with the Ultimate Guide. Of the above position, there is this misplaced assessment

The game is not over, but White has managed to capture the opponent’s queen and now has a more favorable game ahead. 

Of course, Black's Queen remains on the board, and the second player has a piece for a pawn. Stockfish 15.1 (33 ply) evaluates Black as almost a Rook better.

Curiously, The Database shows White scoring a whopping 83% in 101 games with this position. However, this is in large part due to 62 games that the computer program Rybka 2.3.1 32-bit, as Black, played against the computer program Deep Shredder 10 UCI and against the computer program HIARCS 11.1 UCI, where White scored 62 - 0. Ouch.

The most reecent coverage of the line on this blog was of the game Stockfish 15.1 - Maximo, Chess.com, 2023 (1-0, 59).