Jerome Gambit: The BoardGameXpert Returns

 

Two new videos from TheBoardGameXpert:

What Is The Basic Theory Behind The Jerome Gambit? - The Board Game Xpert - YouTube   What Is The Basic Theory Behind The Jerome Gambit? In this engaging video, we'll dive into the fascinating world of the Jerome Gambit, ...

What Is The Best Refutation Of The Jerome Gambit? - The Board Game Xpert - YouTube   overview of the Jerome Gambit, a chess opening known for its aggressive nature. We'll cover how the gambit starts and the typical moves that ... (An incomplete quote from the second video - "Castling kingside is important for king safety and connecting rooks." Since Black's King has moved, he can only castle-by-hand.)

Jerome Gambit: Back Rank Mate

One of the earliest checkmates a player learns is the "back rank mate" which takes advantage of the enemy King being sheltered by a row of unmoved pawns, preventing escape from a fatal check.

In the following game, Bill Wall does not get to deliver that check, but his various threats to do so determine the game.

 

Wall, Bill - Dasasary

sparkchess, 2025

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 

6.Bxd4 7.Qxd4 d6 8.O-O Nf6 

Seen as early as Jerome - Shinkman, Iowa, 1876 (1/2-1/2, 41 ).

Black has a piece for a pawn. White has a plan. 

9.f4 Nc6 10.Qd1 

New for Bill. Five times previously, he had chosen 10.Qd3. 

10...Re8 

Good. Black avoids 10...Nxe4 11.Qd5+ Ke8 12.Qxe4+ when he would only have an edge. 

11.Nc3 Kg8 

12.f5 

Setting a trap. 

12...Nxe4 

Having rightly resisted the e-pawn at move 10, he suddenly finds the poisoned pawn appealing. 

13.Nxe4 Rxe4 14.Qd5+ 

14...Re6 

A sad necessity. 

15.fxe6 Qe7 16.Bg5 

16...Qxe6 

Better was 16...Bxe6 17.Qxc6 Qxg5 18.Qxc7 Bd5 19.Rf2 Re8 but it would still leave the second player behind.

17.Rae1 

Offering his Queen.

17...Ne5 

Or 17...Nd4 18.Qxd4 checkmate in 12. 

18.Rxe5 Black resigned

The White Rook cannot be taken by the Queen, because she is pinned. The pawn cannot take the Rook, as this would allow 19.Qd8+ checkmate

Grandmaster Olga A. Girya Simultaneous Exhibition

Chessfriend and major contributor to this blog, Yury V. Bukayev, reports that Grandmaster Olga A. Girya recently had a 15-board simultaneous exhibition in Moscow. 

Her score was 14 1/2 - 1/2 , that is, she won fourteen games and drew one.

That draw was Yury's game.

Excellent!

Yury shares the official publication on the website of the Moscow Chess Federation:  

https://moscowchess.org/news/18596 .

Jerome Gambit: Ouch (Part 2)

 

[continued from previous post]

perrypawnpusher - Shienny_Loves_Cats

Italian opening rapid players, Chess.com, 2025

13.Nd2 Be6 14.Nf3 Nh5 

15.Qe1 

I didn't think that exchanging Queens with either 15.Qg5 or 15.Qh4 would help me attack, but Stockfish 16.1 (33 ply) sees little difference between the text and the two alternatives - or even 15.Qf2.

15...Qe7 16.c3 

I wasn't sure what to do here.

It turns out, in the post-mortem, the computer didn't have much of an idea, suggesting little moves here and there, i.e. 16.Qc3 Kh8 17.Rae1 h6 18.Nd4 c5 19.Ne2 Kh7 20.Nf4 Nf6 21.Re2 b5 22.Ref2 b4 23.Qe1 Bf7 24.Rf3 d5 25.exd5 Nxd5 26.Qf2 Rfe8 27.e4 Nxf4 28.Rxf4 and Black is still better, of course.

16...Bg4 17.h3 Bxf3 18.gxf3 Qg5+ 

I have the more impressive central pawn mass, but my opponent has the more impressive attack on the King.

19.Kh2 Kh8 20.Rg1 Qb5 21.Qd2 

A slip, but at this point it hardly matters.

21...Rxf3 22.d4 Raf8 23.Rg2 Qd7 White resigned

I suppose it was a bit unfair to rob my opponent of an exciting checkmate - 24.Rg4 Rxh3+ 25.Kxh3 Rf3+ 26.Kh2 Qxg4 27.Qg2 Rg3 28.Qxg3 Qxg3+ 29.Kh1 Qh3+ 30.Kg1 Qxe3+ 31.Kf1 Nf4 32.e5 Qe2+ 33.Kg1 Qg2 # - but I had had enough for one game.

It seems pretty clear that Shienny_Loves_Cats will win the Chess.com "Italian opening rapid players" tournament, but I still have a chance at second place.

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

9...Ng4 as in perrypawnpusher - marianomocoroa, blitz, FICS, 2010 (1-0, 14) and perrypawnpusher - salla. blitz, FICS, 2010 (1-0, 18);

9...Nh5 as in perrypawnpusher - maxmi, blitz, FICS, 2010 (1-0, 42);

9...h6 as in perrypawnpusher - caterwaul, blitz, FICS, 2010 (1-0, 39);

9...h5 as in perrypawnpusher - ulisimbolon, blitz, FICS, 2016 (0-1, 22);

9...Be6 as in perrypawnpusher - Sarantes, Let's Play the Italian Game, Chess.com 2018  (1-0, 37) and

perrypawnpusher - GuestTYQD, blitz, FICS, 2023 (1-0, 39); or

9...Qd7 as in perrypawnpusher - aansmar, Italian Game tournament, Chess.com, 2024 (1/2-1/2, 22).

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]

"Artificial Stupidity" Revisited

Many years ago - 15, I think - with the post "Artificial Stupidity," I wondered

How do you make a computer chess program play not-so-strongly? You can limit the amount of time that it analyzes any position, or you can limit the depth to which it will analyze. Or, you can cause it to blunder every once-in-a-while... 

I have recently learned that some great thinking has gone into that question, with fascinating results

Artificial Stupidity: One Google Engineer’s Algorithms for Bad

Chess Playing

Read it and weep. Or chuckle.

Jerome Gambit: The First to Panic Loses the Game

Ah, yes, the Google Alert on "Jerome Gambit" just turned up another short video, "Jerome Jerome Jerome", presented by ChessMakta.

Interestingly enough, although the 2-dimensional board to illustrate the moves is different, the voice-over (actually, a sing-over) is identical to that of Malcolm's  "Jerome gambit" YouTube video, mentioned in an earlier post, "Jerome Gambit: Fun".

I can certainly identify with the introduction

You know those weird days, right, when chess just ain't clicking and your mind's a haze and you just wanna play in any old way... 

The warning about the Jerome Gambit is worth repeating

The first to panic loses the game.

The video and song-over can also be found on Tik Tok (Eugene), "the first to panic loses the game".

I don't know which video came first, or even if I have found the earliest one, yet. 😖