Jerome Gambit: Updating Early Secrets (Part 3)

 

As we have been doing, starting  a few posts ago, here are a few more updates from earlier blog posts featuring "Jerome Gambit Secrets".

"Jerome Gambit Secret #7" addressed the somewhat unusual defense response to a center pawn fork of two of his pieces: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Nc4 

The Database has 12 games with this position. White scores 67%.

As I noted

So - if Black plays the almost "secret" 6...Nc4, smile, but do not celebrate yet. Go for the Queen check at h5, consider the "nudge" at d5, and prepare for complex play where you can hope for an advantage (with a draw in hand, per Stockfish).

I have noticed in its analysis that Stockfish seems to "mistrust" the Jerome Gambit, that it sometimes has White run to a draw whenever possible. In this line it looks at 7.Qh5+ and if 7...Kf8 recommends 8.Qf5+ Ke8 9.Qh5+ Kf8 10.Qh5+, etc. draw; after all, White is two pieces down.

"Jerome Gambit Secret #8" explored a line that was probably more confusing that it should have been. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Kf8 there are almost 600 games with the position in The Database, with White scoring 55%, yet if you add 6.Nxc6 dxc6 7.O-O Bd6  

then White scores 39% in 14 games - even though Stockfish considers the position about equal. Certainly the plan should be to play 8.d4 or 8.f4, and then f2-f4 or d2-d4 as soon as possible, to take advantage of the "Jerome pawns".

"Jerome Gambit Secret #9" Investigated a sideline. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ng6 White could either capture the Bishop on c5 directly or go in for a Queen-check "nudge" first, which he does here 7.Qd5+ Kf6 however, after this King's mis-step, there is the attack-the-king-minded 8.f4

According to The Database, White has scored 53% in 16 games. Lichess.org's database is more encouraging, with 19 games where White scores almost 80%.