Showing posts with label Boden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boden. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Evans-ish Abrahams Jerome Gambit

In the previous post (see "Jerome Gambit: Move That Knight!") I shared a couple of outrageous ways (other than sacrificing it at e5) for White to move his King's Knight out of the way in the Jerome Gambit so that his Queen can enter the fray.

Of course, one "solution" is not to put the Knight there in the first place. Consider the Abrahams Jerome Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+!?

I consulted The Database, and learned that it has one 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ game by Bill Wall - always a good openings experimenter to check out - played on the internet in 2001. (Even that far back, he played a couple of games with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+.)

It turns out that at the same time Bill was extending his experiments a bit, as the following game shows.

Wall, Bill - Quianna
Internet, 2001

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.b4

This move is at least as old as the MacDonnell - La Bourdonnais, London match,1834.

3...Bxb4 4.c3 Bc5 5.d4 exd4 6.Bxf7+



Here we have what might be called the "Evans-ish Abrahams Jerome Gambit", as it is not quite an Evans Gambit without Nf3/Nc6. The game follows MacDonnell - Boden, London, 1869, for 5 moves, but the first game example that I have of the move 6 Bishop sacrifice is from 2000. (Light analysis of the sacrifice is at least as old as Jaenisch's Analyse Nouvelle des ouvertures in the 1840s.)

6...Kxf7 7.Qh5+ g6 8.Qxc5



NM Eric Schiller, in notes to a game (Denker - Shayne, Rochester, New York, 1945) at Chessgames.com, said this position "looks very good for White". (It's probably about even - but for White to reach equality in 8 moves in any kind of Jerome Gambit has got to be very good, right?)

8...dxc3

The kind of pawn-grabbing that is usually punished.

Instead, Stockfish 9 suggests 8...Qe7 - as seen in Delanoy - Kamenecki, Cannes, France, 2000 (1-0, 38) - with an even game. However, Michael Goeller, a Bishop's Opening expert, gives that move a "?!" and prefers 8...Nf6 - no games in The Database - which he gives a "!", with an even game. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with 8...Nc6 or 8...d6, either.

9.Nxc3 d6 

10.Qd5+

Psychological warfare. Bill has used a similar Queen check in the Jerome Gambit proper to question Black: Do you want to play ...Be6 and give up the b-pawn? 

10...Kf8

Black replies Not quite, and keeps his King off of the a1-h8 diagonal, where one of his Rooks lives, and where White's remaining Bishop might take up residence. Yet, 10...Kg7 might have been a better move.

11.Nf3 c6

Kicking the Queen, instead of focusing on development.

White has ample compensation for his sacrificed pawn (development, Black's unsafe King), and his opponent's next move, a nervous oversight, ends the game.

12.Qd4 c5 13.Qxh8 Black resigned



Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Jerome Gambit for Dummies (1)


Bobby Fischer used to play with the white pieces against the Najdorf Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6) - and win. Then he would take the black pieces in another game - and win with them. Some players - and some openings - are like that.

The Jerome Gambit is not. If you have the white pieces and play the Jerome against a knowledgeable and booked-up opponent, chances are that you are going to have a rough time of it – unless you're playing a "weaky" (Bobby's term) that you've given Jerome Gambit odds to. *

Playing 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, you are counting on the element of surprise, shock, and awe to level the playing field. Therefore, you need to be aware of every trick, trap, and pitfall (or "caltrop" as Tim McGrew used to say) available to you so that you take advantage of every chance that comes your way.

Hence this series, "The Jerome Gambit For Dummies". (No jokes, please. We know, we know...)


* Some thoughts on the art of odds-giving, from the age of the Jerome Gambit:

Chess At Odds of Pawn and Move compiled by Baxter-Ray (1891)
Considering the large number of works published for the purpose of teaching a knowledge of the game of Chess, it must appear strange to the ordinary student to find so little information available in regard to Openings at Odds. Odds-giving has never received the attention it deserves from the analysts of the game. Yet it is very popular, and is rapidly growing in practice ; indeed, it is absolutely necessary for every Club, and a very large number of private players, to regularly introduce odds into their games, with, at present, little or nothing to guide them as to the best means of commencing play.

A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess. Forming A Compendium of the Science of the Game by Samuel Boden (1851)
One may often hear persons declare that they think it cowardly to take odds, that they had rather be beaten on even terms ; or that the removing of a piece, in odds, must spoil the game. All this is sheer nonsense, and only bespeaks utter ignorance of Chess. A game played even, where one party should be rendering the odds of a piece in order to give the other a chance, will have no interest for the one, and little pleasure for the other. If the weaker player has no chance, of course the stronger player can have no sport.

The Australian Chess Annual Edited by H. B. Bignold (1896)
If the handicap given is a fair measure of the difference in skill of the respective players, the odds giver can only hope to neutralise his deficiency in material by superiority of development. Assuming he has the move, it immediately becomes a matter of the utmost importance to adopt a suitable opening. But what is a suitable opening ? The answer to this will vary with circumstances, and on the player's ability to gauge them will to a great extent depend his success as an odds-giver. It is very certain that every player has some particular style of opening, which is in consonance with his turn of thought, and in which he will appear to the best advantage. If you can form some idea of your adversary's penchant, and avoiding it, lead him on to less familiar ways, your chances are, perforce, improved. Assuming you are the better player, if it should seem to you that you have both the same cast of mind, it is a matter of very nice consideration whether it will pay you better to meet him on his own ground, which is also yours, or lead him on to ways strange to both of you, trusting to your greater skill to gain an advantage on the spur of the moment. In choosing a gambit it should be borne in mind that if the one adopted is familiar to the adversary, the game is almost hopelessly compromised, since the initial difference force is already increased without any positional recompense. The writer has a lively recollection of giving a 5th class player a Rook and Knight, himself being in the 1st class, and receiving 14 moves of book defence to the Allgaier he ventured on ! In this dilemma, though it may appear fanciful, perhaps your adversary may himself give you the least hint. If he is a careful, cautious man, square-jawed, deliberate of manner, apt to weigh his words — perhaps even attach too much weight to them — given to loading his pipe with the utmost deliberation, and lighting it as if it were a solemn function, is it too much to premise that he belongs to the class that loves to castle early and oppose a solid phalanx to the advancing foe ? Perchance an Allgaier, or a Kieseritzky, whereby his cherished scheme of castling is rendered impracticable, may utterly rout him ! If he is of the opposite temperament — nervous, painfully excitable, given to squirming with impatience should you appear unduly slow to move — a Giuoco, with its orderly development, may entice him from his entrenchments to be more easily dispatched. In general, of course, he will belong to neither extreme, and classifying him will be a work of some difficulty, but to one who cares to succeed, a knowledge of his rivals can never be without advantage, in chess or the sterner warfare that it dimly shadows forth.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Worth a Second Look... (Part 2)


Rainer Schlenker refers to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 (see "Worth a Second Look... (Part 1)") as the "Busch - Gass Gambit" in the May/June 1985 issue (pp. 69-71) of his magazine Randspringer.

He refers to analysis by Oskar Cordel in Führer durch die Schachtheorie (1888)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Qe7 4.d4 Bd6 (4...Bb6 5.Bc4!) 5.f4 f6 6.Nc4 Qxe4+ 7.Kf2 Bxf4 8.Nc3 Qf5 9.Bd3 Qg5 10.Re1+ Ne7 11.Kg1 Nbc6 12.Bxf4 Qxf4 13.Qh5+ Kf8 14.Re4 +/- / +-
and analysis included in Bilguer (1916)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Qe7 4.d4 Bd6 5.Nc3! Bxe5 6.Nd5 Qd6 7.dxe5 Qxe5 8.Bf4 Qxe4+ 9.Qd2
Schlenker, however, modifies the name that Bent Larsen gave to the line ("Busch-Gambit") in Larsen's Sharp Openings (in Danish) based on the game Baird - Busch, 15. Kongresses Deutchen Schachbundes, Nuremberg 1906. Sharp Openings included a portion of the game:

Baird,D - Busch
Nuremberg, 1906
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Nf3 Qe7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.d4 Nxe4 7.Nd5 Bb4+ 8.Bd2 Nxd2+ 9.Nxe7 Nxf3+ 10.Ke2 Nfxd4+ 11.Kd3 Bxe7 12.c3 Ne6 13.Kc2 0-0 14.g3 d5 15.Bd3 Rd8 16.f4 d4 17.f5 dxc3 18.fxe6 Nb4+ 19.Kxc3 Rxd3+ 20.Qxd3 Nxd3 21.exf7+ Kf8 22.Kxd3 Bf5+ 0-1


Schlenker adds the name "Gass" to the variation after the German master who had been playing the line in the 1970s and 1980s, and gives a few examples.

Many of Gass's blitz games have gone:

NN - Gass
blitz (1970 - 1985)
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Nxc6 dxc6 5.d3 Nf6 6.Bg5 Nxe4 7.Bxd8 Bxf2+ 8.Ke2 Bg4 checkmate

and then there's

NN - Gass
blitz
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Nxc6 dxc6 5.c3 Qe7 6.f3 f5 7.d4 fxe4 8.dxc5 exf3+ 9.Kf2 Nf6 10.Bc4 Ne4+ 11.Kg1 fxg2 12.Kxg2 Bh3+ 13.Kg1 Qxc5+ 14.Qd4 Rd8!! White resigns

While Cordel (1888) and Bilguer (1916) updated the analysis of Salvio (1604) (see "Worth a Second Look... (Part 1)"), Busch and Gass have taken the opening in a different direction: that of a reversed Boden - Kieseritzky Gambit, a move down.

That, too, deserves a second look...