Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Jerome Gambit Perplexity


Travelling to the perplexity.ai website, to ask about Jerome Gambit games, was an enjoyable excursion. 

I had been warned that artificial intelligence entities can "hallucinate" occasionally - recall my encounters with ChatGPT - so I was pleased that most of the information that was given about my favorite opening was accurate, including

Evaluation: Chess experts generally consider this opening unsound, as it involves significant material sacrifice without sufficient compensation.

Then along came a puzzler
Here are some famous games involving the Jerome Gambit:
Blackburne vs. Potter, 1876: This game is perhaps the most well-known Jerome Gambit game. Joseph Henry Blackburne, a strong British player of the 19th century, demonstrated a powerful counterattack for Black. The game went: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 d6 8.Qxh8 Qh4 9.0-0 Nf6 10.c3 Ng4 11.h3 Bxf2+ 12.Kh1 Bf5, and Black went on to win...
How about that?

The AI appears to be a bit confused: it should have referred to Potter vs Blackburne, if the sentence that followed is correct; i.e. Blackburne had Black.

The most well-known Jerome Gambit game has to be Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1884, which contained the exact moves given to the so-called "Blackburne - Potter"  - I mean, Potter - Blackburne - game, above.

How much fun would it have been if Blackburne had had the White pieces and played the Jerome Gambit??

Sometimes Blackburne's opponent in that 1884 game is given as "NN" or "Anonymous" or "Mr. M" or "Milner". 

Can we now add "Potter" the the list of possible names of the opponent?

I suppose - althoughThe Database has no Jerome Gambit either played or defended against by Potter.

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