What do you think?

About a month ago, Yury Bukayev asked me about the following line of play: 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.Nf3 Nd4.

It had a certain familiarity to it, especially since he suggested 5.Bxf7+!? as a response.

I told him that I would share the opening and my thoughts about it with Readers.

In the meantime, I went to the online ChessLab site and searched for games with the line. I found exactly zero.

Silly me, I was looking in the wrong place. A check of the 26,685 games in The Database showed me 10 examples (White won 9).

One was Wall - Surr, Chess.com, 2010 (1-0, 11), which has already appeared on this blog.

So, clearly, it was time for me to pay attention. First, a brisk walk-through.

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6

Starting out as a Vienna Game.

3.Bc4 h6 4.Nf3

The game has transposed to a Semi-Italian Opening, i.e. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.Nc3 (I usually play the alternative 4.0-0).

4...Nd4

Reaching the diagram above.

This Knight move is seen in the Blackburne Shilling Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4. The idea in the BSG is that White's greedy 4.Nxe5 can be met by 4...Qg5. 

Then the classic BSG punishment by Black follows 5.Nxf7 Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Nf3#. The pluckier 5.Ng4 is met by 5...d5, with Black advantage. "Best" at this point for White might be 5.Bxf7+ followed by 6.0-0, When Black has the advantage of a piece for two pawns, but many Jerome Gambiteers would be used to that.

Of course, against the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, many Jerome Gambiteers would reply with 4.Bxf7+!? to begin with.

Can the Knight jump work for Black in the delayed form, however? What do you think?

A Bridge To... Somewhere?

Yesterday's game, Byrne [Bryne] - Farwell, San Francisco, 1859, serves as a curious bridge between two pieces of Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) history. On the one hand, as we have seen, the opening moves transpose to what later will become known as the Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit. On the other hand, it introduces to this blog a player, Willard B. Farwell, who has a couple of other games in the historical California chess database — one of which approaches the question of what games might have influenced Alonzo Wheeler Jerome in the creation of his gambit (see "A Distant Relative?").


Farwell,W - Jones,E
San Francisco, 1859


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 

This is the Scotch Gambit, but, hold on.


4...Bc5 5.Ng5 Nh6


And now, a relatively familiar set of moves...*


6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qxc5 

The game is about even, although White went on to lose in a miniature (9...d5 10.e5 Re8 11.f4 Nxe5 12.fxe5 Rxe5+ 13.Kd2 Qg5+ 14.Kd3 Re3+ 0-1).


I checked the position after White's 7th move in the ChessLab online database, and discovered a line of games with a whole host of familiar names, on both sides of the board, including:


Labourdonnais - Haxo, Gilvoisin, 1837 (1/2-1/2, 33)
Shumov - Jaenisch, St. Petersburg, 1850 (1-0, 20)
NN - Harrwitz, Paris, 1852 (0-1, 13)
Meek - Morphy, Alabama, 1855 (0-1, 21)
Montgomery - Allison, New York, 1857 (0-1, 59)
Kennicott - Morphy, New York, 1857 (0-1, 24)
Steinkuhler - Blackburne, Manchester, 1861 (0-1, 24)
Ranken - Staunton, London, 1866 (0-1, 24)


Could this be the trail of another "godfather" of the Jerome Gambit? I will be digging deeper...




*-Opening analysis of the time warned against 5...Ne5, because of 6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qxc5, going back at least as far as Sarratt - NN, 1818.. Familiar?

Data Gathering

The early post "My Jerome Gambit Database" from June 28, 2008, mentioned that I had on hand "over 950 games" – at that time, a startlingly high number for me, especially since trips to the online databases at ChessBase and ChessLab websites turned up so few games.

Currently, the updated New Year's Database contains about 18,000 Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+), Blackburne Shilling Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4 4.Bxf7+), and Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.0-0/4.Nc3/4.d3 Bc5 5.Bxf7+) games.

What a difference two years make!