Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Jerome Gambit: Ouch (Part 1)



Ouch.

The following loss with the Jerome Gambit is painful - even more so since, in post-game analysis, Stockfish 16.1 first suggested an alternative move (improvement) to one that I played only on my 18th move. I was on familiar territory. Allegedly.

Alas, five moves later, I resigned.

More specious numbers:

From the early moves, onward, Stockfish continued to rate my position after each moves as about 2 1/2 pawns worse than my opponent. I was not able to whittle that difference down. For a similar lament, see "Jerome Gambit: Success is Not Around the Corner in A Circular Room".

Finally, I had to  ponder the fact that pieces are, roughly, worth about 3 pawns, so that my Jerome Gambit sacrifices of two pieces (6 pawns) for two pawns (2 pawns) gave a net of being down about 4 pawns. If Stockfish rated me as being only 2 1/2 pawns down, does that mean that I had about 1 1/2 pawns worth of compensation?

Also relevant to this discussion is Geoff Chandler's "blunder table". 

 

perrypawnpusher - Shienny_Loves_Cats

Italian opening rapid players, Chess.com, 2025

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Kf8 

7.Qxe5 d6 8.Qg3 Nf6 

Instead, 8...Be6 was seen in perrypawnpusher - GuestGCSC, blitz, FICS, 2023 (0-1, 49).

9.d3 

Stockfish doesn't see much difference between the text and 9.Nc3, which was seen in 

perrypawnpusher - klixar, blitz, FICS, 2007 (1-0, 33);

 perrypawnpusher - truuf, blitz, FICS, 2011 (0-1, 32);

perrypawnpusher - mallack, Italian Game Battlegrounds, Chess.com 2019 (1-0, 23); 

perrypawnpusher - Abhishek29, Italian Game Battlegrounds, Chess.com, 2019 (1-0, 35);

perrypawnpusher - klask, blitz, FICS, 2023  (0-1, 47); and

perrypawnpusher - cool64chess, lichess.org, 2024 (0-1, 24).

9...Kf7 


Or






10.Be3 Bxe3 11.fxe3 Rf8 12.O-O Kg8 


Black has his traditional piece-for-two-pawns Jerome Gambit material advantage.

[to be continued]


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