Thursday, February 15, 2024

Jerome Gambit: Beat Offbeat Chess Lines!

 


Yury V. Bukayev pointed me to a very interesting and enjoyable online video, "BEAT OFFBEAT CHESS LINES! | PREPARE LIKE A PRO - GM ELSHAN MORADIABADI" by the St. Louis Chess Club, earlier this year.

There is a short section in the video on the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+).

Here are a few excerpts from the grandmaster's comments

Someone wants Jerome Gambit. I don't which one is that Jerome Gambit... 

Okay so you want me to refute this opening...

[Grandmaster Moradiabadi consults a chess program on his phone] Gives minus five...

So I was wondering if it is possible enough, plausible enough, for me to imagine that, for example, Alpha Zero or Stockfish can beat me in this point but I think minus five means that they cannot...

The opening does not really impress the grandmaster.

You just have to make a couple of moves and you are up a piece.

But he assesses that the Jerome is not something that falls on its own.

Okay, but it's not easy, actually, how do you win this. People have to know this, people can get a bit cocky here...

The amiable grandmaster's advice? He looks at the line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 and comments

The best to do is just give it [the piece] away [8...Kc6], give one piece away, it doesn't matter, and get the king to safety.

So, at first glance, Grandmaster Moradiabadi recommends the "Sillycon Defense" to the Jerome Gambit!

For a couple of recent games with that line, see the posts "To Counter Jerome Gambit" and "Jerome Gambit: Cat-Astrophe". There is also analysis in the post "Jerome Gambit: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Part 1)"

I recommend Readers watch the entire video. It is less than an hour in length, and is entertaining and educational.





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