Friday, September 29, 2023

Jerome Gambit: The Freddy Defense



The YouTube video "Jerome Gambit - Checkmate in 13" by FazbearFreddy (a Five Nights At Freddy's fan) shows a rather wild and scary Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) game, ending up - in 13 moves - with checkmate.


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5


Now Black can choose to enter the Blackburne defense with 7...d6 or the Whistler defense with 7...Qe7.

7...Qf8 

Instead he chooses what has to be called the Freddy defense, as this is the first time that I have seen this move, and there are no examples in The Database.

Black's Queen sees the danger to her Bishop, and guards it, but she seems unaware of the danger to her Rook, which she loses.

8.Qxh8 Qe7 

Black arrives at a Whistler's defense, a move down. 

This is not an improvement, but there are still tactics available. 

9.Qxh7+ Kf6 

This move costs a Knight, although it is interesting to note that Stockfish 15.1 (at 30 ply) sees the capture as only 7/100th of a pawn better than exchanging Queens.

10.Qxg8 Qxe4+ 

This is what Black was thinking about when he played 8...Qe7.

11.Kd1 

Rewarding Black; was White reflexively protecting his c-pawn? Much safer was 11.Kf1, protecting the g-pawn. 

Still, after the text, White is better. 

11...Bxf2 

Attackers (with either color) take note.

Black anticipates 12.Re1, and prevents it with the text capture.

This is as good, as far as it goes.

However, 11...Qxg2 (or, similarly, 11...Qg4+ 12.f3 Qxg2) is stronger, if only because now 12.Re1 Qf3+ 13.Re2 Qh1+ 14.Re1 Qf3+ etc would draw - a reasonable outcome for Black when he was in a worse position.

The difficulty with 11...Qxg2, however, at least as far as Black is concerned, is that White can simply give up the Rook: 12.c4!? Qxh1+ 13.Kc2 when Black's King is more at risk.

After the text move, the first player finishes things off quickly.

12.Qf8+ Ke6 13.Qxf2 d5 14.Rf1 Bd7 

Ooops.

15.Qf6 checkmate





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