Sarrat Attack: No Way A World Champion...

In my never-ending search to uncover not only Jerome Gambit and Jerome-ish games, but also possible precursors that might have inspired Alonzo Wheeler Jerome to create his gambit, I have run across a number of interesting, if old, openings. 

For example, in "No Way A GM Plays the Jerome Gambit! (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)" I looked at a couple modern examples of the Sarratt Attack (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.Ng5 Nh6 6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+): Grischuk, A. - Karjakin, Sergey, St. Louis Blitz, St. Louis, 2018 (1/2-1/2 69) and Grischuk, A. - Dominguez Perez, L., St. Louis Blitz, St. Louis, 2018 (1-0, 43).

This was all very interesting, as I had noted in my post "The Sarratt Attack"

Of the Sarrat / Vitzthum Attack (see the recent "Another Distant Relative" as well as "A Bridge To... Somewhere" and "Abridged"), The City of London Chess Magazine wrote in 1875

This attack, invented by Count Vitzthum, was very much practised about twenty years ago. [Here, Readers may recall Meek - Morphy, Mobile, Alabama, 1855; Meek - Morphy, New Orleans, 1855; and Kennicott - Morphy, New York, 1857 as examples; although Lowenthal, in Morphy's Games (1860), had already opined "This {5.Ng5}is far from an effective mode of proceeding with the attack, and is decidedly inferior to castling" and "This mode of proceeding with the attack is comparatively obsolete, as with the correct play the defense is perfectly satisfactory." ] It is now abandoned in contests of strong players, as the analysis proved that Black can maintain his Pawn with a good position.

Recently, however, I ran across the following game:

Carlsen, Magnus - Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi
Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz, 2019

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d4 exd4 5.Ng5  drawn

GM Vidit was rated 2722, but, when a World Champion offers you a draw...

From ChessBomb.com: "The commentators confirm that Magnus is feeling unwell today"  

Wrote SportsStar.thehindu.com "Troubled by an upset stomach" 

Jerome Gambit: In the Style of World Champions

I suppose that chess purists would recoil from me suggesting that the following Jerome Gambit game seems to be influenced by the recent Caruana - Carlsen match for the World Chess Championship. White is comfortable allowing a Queenless middlegame and heads for a quiet endgame. Why not? He has the better game. It almost looks like he turned play over to the automatic pilot in his brain.

Wall, Bill - Guest5649018
PlayChess.com, 2018

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Nf3+

I really like this move. It's no good, of course, and in the 7 games in The Database that contain it, White has 6 wins - and his lone loss was to a tricky checkmate in an endgame where the clock seems to have played a major part in stealing a well-earned "1-0".

Still, if Black has to give back a piece, you have to smile at his creativity - especially if he expected a pawn capture on White's next move.

7.Qxf3+ Qf6 8.dxc5 Qxf3 9.gxf3 Nf6 

Apologies to Guest5649018, but this is the kind of position Bill could play while working on the New York Times crossword puzzle - even the Sunday edition.

10.Nc3 Rf8 11.Bf4 Ne8 12.Nd5 c6 13.Nc7 Nxc7
14.Bxc7 Ke6 

The chances of reaching a drawn Bishops-of-opposite-colors endgame are very small.

15.Ke2 a5 16.a4 Rf6 17.Rag1 g6 18.h4 Black resigned

Perhaps Black has been following the World Championship match, as well. He sees that White is content to grind and grind... (It is also relevant, once again, to point out that Black's d-pawn blocks his Bishop, which blocks his Queen Rook - a fatal illness often found in Jerome Gambit games.)

Your Opponent is Overrated

For my birthday my wife gave me James Schuyler's Your Opponent is Overrated (Everyman Chess, 2016). I appreciate the subtitle: A Practical Guide to Inducing Errors.

I have not gotten into the book, but the text on the back cover is enticing

Which opening does better in practice: the wild, "unsound" and "refuted" Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5) or the solid Philidor Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6)? As James Schuyler points out, referring to the definative Megabase, the Latvian Gambit scores higher. 

How can such a discredited opening (and the same story is repeated with other "unsound" openings) do so well? the point is that playing like this throws the opponent off balance, makes them anxious and induces mistakes.Even the very best players recognise the value of discomforting the opponent. Historically, Emanuel Lasker was the master of this approach and his modern day equivalent is world champion Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen frequently employs offbeat openings and his opponents invariably fail to counter them correctly. 

This is the key theme of this book. Schuyler covers all phases of the game and discusses other vital subjects such as harassment, meterial imbalance, time management, surprise moves, unusual ideas, provocative play, manoeuvers and recovering from bad positions.

I am pretty sure that the author "overlooks" an opening as "discredited" as the Jerome Gambit, but I think that it is likely that many of his ideas in the book will relate to playing the Jerome! 

Jerome Gambit: That's Not All

Chessfriend Yury Bukayev was disappointed that Grandmaster Jon Speelman, in his ChessBaseNews "Agony" column coverage of two of my Jerome Gambit games (e.g. the Jerome Gambit is "balderdash in the highest sense") failed to mention other opening lines covered in this blog.

Indeed, the GM probably did not discover the post "Opening Innovation Resource", for example, or read and check out the links in "An Email Discussion", or do a site search here for "Bukayev gambit".

With Yury's encouragement I have added the subtitle "(risky/nonrisky lines, tactics & psychology for fast, exciting play)" to this blog's heading.

I would like to share a poem he sent, as well.

Study WEAK Jerome gambits
For a magic playing blitz! 
Study STRONG Jerome gambits -
You'll beat Carlsen, Hou, "Fritz"!

Jerome Gambit Ascendant

1. World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has revealed that if his upcoming match with Sergey Karjakin goes to rapid tie-break games, he will consider playing the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7!?).

2. President Trump


Up until November 8, 2016, I would have expected #1 to be more likely.

Now it looks like the United States is going to get a whole lot of #2.

A Discouraging Word

Oh, give me a home

Where the buffalo roam

Where the deer and the antelope play'

Where seldom is heard

A discouraging word,

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

     – from the poem "Oh give me a Home" by Dr. Brewster M. Higley; later set to music as "The Western Home" by Clarence and Eugene Harlan, and Dan Kelley; known better today as the song "Home on the Range"

From Secrets of Practical Chess, by Grandmaster John Nunn:

When looking through "dubious opening" analysis, look out for the following:

1) "nothing moves" by the opponent (i.e. the one facing the dubious opening), which only waste time

2) Lines in which the opponent pretends he is in the nineteenth century, co-operatively brabs all the material on offer, and allows a brilliant finish

3) Lines which are given without any assessment

4) Secret code words

5) "Winning With" authors display great ingenuity in finding resources for "their" side, but often overlook even quite simple tactical defenses for the "other" side.

6) Do not trust lines that are not based on practical examples. The more examples there are, and the higher the standard of the players, the more trust you can place in the line.

I feel comfortable with Dr. Nunn's wisdom, as from the earliest days of this blog I have been straight-forward – on a good day the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) aspires to be known as a "junk opening," but likely still over-reaches!

"But – Is this stuff playable??" is a question that has been addressed a number of times. I have tried to be fair in my analysis of chances for both sides.

Still, I like the opening, it's fun to play in fun games, and it is an enjoyable way to give "odds".

If I ever face Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in a simultaneous exhibition, I'll surely use a more appropriate opening.

Hah! Who am I kidding?? I'd never pass up the chance to see what the number one rated chessplayer in the world would play against the Jerome!