Friday, June 9, 2023

Jerome Gambit: Checkmate in 8 Moves? (Part 2)

 

To repeat the challenge of yesterday's blog post

The New York Clipper of April 12, 1879 contained the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) game between J. Lanning and J.K. Zim.

After 14 moves the players reached the following position

According to the chess columnist

Black announced mate in eight moves. To stimulate critical research, our contributor offers a six months' subscription of Detroit Weekly Free Press for a second solution in eight moves or less, fully analyzed; and has named Miron [Hazleton] as umpire.

My best "try" at solving this mate-in-eight is to suggest that the New York Clipper's chess columnist mis-spoke, or mis-typed, or mis-wrote...

After the key move 14...Nf3+, then Black has a checkmate in 8 further  moves. 

It takes that long, because White can put off the checkmate by giving up a lot of material. Perhaps that is where Mr. Hazleton overlooked something?

Or has a Reader bested me and found the true solution?

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