Jerome Gambit: He Should Have Stuck with Boring

The following short Jerome Gambit game illustrates the idea that a proper defense - and there are many - can (and, maybe, should) be boring and also correct. 

Stepping outside of "boring" can be very dangerous against Bill Wall.

Wall, Bill - Twister

SparkChess, 2025

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Bb4+ 7.c3 Nd3+ 

Black needs to surrender a piece, and this is how he does it. 

More "boring", but better for him, was 7...Be7 - the Bishop retreats after forcing a pawn, not a Knight, to c3.

8.Qxd3 Be7 9.Qf3+ 

Earlier, Bill had played 9.O-O Nf6 10.e5 in Wall,B - Anonymous, lichess.org 2020 (1-0, 23)

9... Ke8 10.O-O 

10...d5 

Or the less energetic 10...d6 as in Wall,B - Ripao, lichess.org 2017 (1-0, 18).

11.Nd2 dxe4 12.Nxe4 Nf6 13.Re1 

Black has the typical Jerome piece-for-two-pawns advantage, and if he could only castle now, he would be well off.

Since he can not castle, he looks to harass White's Queen - a mistaken idea that immediately gets tactically refuted.

13...Bg4 14.Nxf6+ gxf6 15.Qxg4 

15...Qd6 16.Bf4 Qc6 17.Qg7 Black resigned

White's Queen and Rook cause mayhem: there is a checkmate in 6.