Saturday, August 16, 2025

Jerome Gambit: Wrongly Remembered



The following Jerome Gambit game features two 1900+ players with a half hour each to play, and suggests that being guided by an idea, wrongly remembered, can be fatal. 


Uxx - Oleg_1986

30 0, lichess.org, 2025

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Bd6 

This is reminiscent of what Hans Kmoch, in his Pawn Power in Chess (1949), called "the Fork Trick" (analyzed by Yury V. Bukayev) - only with colors reversed. 

7.dxe5 Bxe5 

Correct here is either 7...Bb4+ or 7...Bf8, although, according to The Database, almost nobody plays those moves - the current players are automatically following how the play goes, again, with colors reversed.

One of them is bound to be disappointed.

8.Qd5+ Kf6 

Hoping to hold onto the Bishop, in vain.

9.f4 Qe7 

Stockfish 16.1's calculation comes up with the alternative, 9...Ne7, which does not save the second player.

10.fxe5+ Qxe5 11.O-O+ Black resigned


Black will lose his Queen, and then his King: 11...Qf4 12.Rxf4+ Ke7 13.Qd5+ Kd8 14.Rf8 checkmate.


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