Thursday, January 2, 2025

Impatient vs Inattentive



Sometimes Black uses the Two Knights Defense to side-step the Jerome Gambit.

Sometimes it does not matter, as the following game shows


thunder_84 - chanegti11

3 0 blitz, lichess.org, 2022

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 

The Two Knights Defense.

4.Bxf7+

Stockfish 16.1 evaluates this position as about a pawn worse for White than it evaluates 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ for White. 

This game brought "impatience" to mind again. I had touched on the topic as recently as 3 months ago, in Jerome Gambit: Impatience 

Four years ago, in the blog post "Unasked Questions" I looked at the Two Knights line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Bxf7+ and commented 

This line doesn't have a name, as far as I know, but it might as well be "the impatient Jerome Gambit". The earliest game that I have with it in The Database is from 2001, but it has to be much older than that. My research is lacking here.

Subsequently (see "Jerome Gambit: Facing Up to 4.Bxf7+ in the Two Knights [Part 2]"), thanks to Dr. Timothy Harding's UltraCorr 3A (2010) collection of correspondence chess games, I uncovered Draper, Dr - Child, AW., Belfast - Dublin team correspondence match-2 1891-2, an earlier game with that "impatient" line.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Ng6 

7.e5 Nd5 8.Qf3+ 

I suspect that one attraction of playing 4.Bxf7+ in the Two Knights Defense is that an inattentive defender might now slip with 8...Kg8, falling to 9.Qd5 checkmate. There are 89 such games in The Database.

8...Ke6 9.c4 Nb6 


In a 3-minute game it is possible to overlook 9...Bb4+ 10.Kf1 Qh4!? as 11.Qxd5+ can be met by 11...Ke7 and Black's King would be remarkably safe, while his extra piece would outweigh White's two extra pawns, e.g. 12.Nd2 c6 13.Qe4 Bxd2 14.Qxh4+ Nxh4 15.Bxd2 Nf5.

10.d5+ 

White is down two pieces, but this sacrifice leads to victory.

10...Kxe5 

If 10...Ke7 then 11.Bg5+ will win the Queen.

11.O-O 

11...Nxc4 12.Re1+ Kd6 13.Nc3 Qf6 

A slip, perhaps the clock.

14.Ne4+ Black resigned


Black's Queen is lost.


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