Jerome Gambit: One More Thing...

In the following game we see angelcamina and his opponent battling over the board in another example of how the defender can "solve" the opening - at the cost of too much time on his clock.

Who is better? Who is worse? Who just ran ot of time?

One minute games are like that.

angelcamina - Gio777777777777

1 0 bullet, lichess.org, 2023

1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 

angelcamina has 1,005 games in The Database with this move order. He scores 62%.

 3...h6 

The Semi-Italian Opening, an interesting choice for Black.

Clearly he wants to keep an enemy piece off of the g5 square, even at the risk of slightly weakening his Kingside (especially the light squares), should he choose to castle there.

Stockfish 15.1 sees this as a better protection (about a pawn better) against the following sacrifice than 3...Bc5. 

4.Bxf7+

The Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit. 

angelcamina has only one game with this line in The Database.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ng6 7.Qd5+ Ke8 8.Qf5 

There are 11 games with this position in The Database.the first 5 games are by computers; over all record 6 - 5.

Where will the attacked Knight go? It turns out it never moves.

8...N8e7 9.Qf3 c6 10.O-O Qc7 11 d4 d5 12.e5 Be6 

Black  has defended well, although there is usually something that White can focus on, even in that case. Here, the pieces on e6 and g6 give an idea.

13.Qd3 Bf5 14.Qd1 Be4 15.f3 Bf5 16.g4 Be6 17.f4 Bd7 18.f5 

Stockfish assesses the Black position as more than 4 pawns ahead.

However, in the real world, where each player has 60 seconds to win the game or be defaulted, the problem of the advancing "Jerome pawns" is not insignificant.

18...h5 

Fair enough: it is time to return some of the sacrificed material. (Another way was 18...Nh4 19.e6.)

19.fxg6 Nxg6 20.gxh5 Nh4 21.Qe1 Be7 

22.Qg3 Nf5 23.Qg6+ Kd8 24.Nc3 Be8 

Black hopes to eject the enemy Queen, the one piece that is giving him any trouble. However, this slip (tick, tick, tick) unprotects his Knight, and he surrenders his advantage.

25.Qxf5 Rxh5 26.Qf3 Qd7 27.Bf4 Rh3 28.Bg3 

In this position, White is a bit better - he is up a pawn - but it doesn't really matter, as he now won on time.