Continuing my game, as a tribute to Alonzo Wheeler Jerome, of the Jerome Gambit.
perrypawnpusher - ArinrudtheDude
The Italian Game, Chess.com, 2026
19.e5 dxe5
To exchange pawns, or not?
In this case, it should be not, but after the alternative, say 19...Qd8, there follows 20.e6, when Black's 20...b5 fails to distract, as in 21.e7 Qb8 22.exf8/Q Qxf8.
20.dxe5 Nh5 21.Bd6+
This move seems to help my game, but, after the game, Stockfish 18 recommended it.
23.exd6
Again, after the game, the computer preferred 23.Qxd6, suggesting that the text move largely lets the air out of my position.
What is that line from George Orwell's 1984?
Big Brother is watching.
23...Qf7
I had some attacking ideas, and decided to try them.
24.g4 Nf6 25.Re7 Qg8 26.g5 Ne8
Okay, Readers, stop laughing. This is a bona fide cheapo, "threatening" the pawn at a7. Really. Take the Knight, already...
27...cxb5
I am sure, if my chess pieced had been unionized, at this point they would have filed a grievance about unsafe working conditions.
On the other hand, there is now a forced checkmate.
28.Qc5+ Kd8 29.Rxe8+
For Jerome!
29...Kxe8 30.Re1+ Be6
At this point, I had made some notes about future play, and left the game for a while.
When I came back, I noticed that I had lost my notes, but still immediately played...
31.Qxb5+
...and then grabbed my head, when I remembered that the line I had looked at started with 31.Rxe6+.
Oh, well. Maybe I could find something.
31...Kf7
Readers no doubt have figured out my next move.
32.Qd7+
Yes!
Having sacrificed a Bishop and a Knight in the opening, the other Knight and a Rook in the late middlegame, it is fitting to sacrifice the Queen as well.
32...Bxd7 33.Re7 checkmate
(Sincere apologies to the memory of Reuben Fine, for having strayed from the path that I had imagined he had laid out, as noted in "Blackburned #1"
My first chess book was Reuben Fine's Chess the Easy Way – available in paperback these days, used, for under $5.00 – and it gave me the idea (rightly or wrongly) that much of chess can be boiled down to: win a pawn, exchange everything else, win the K + P vs K endgame... )
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