Question: When it comes to playing the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) what happens if I don't know the best lines for White, and my opponent doesn't play one of the best defenses, anyhow?
Answer: Ha, ha, ha, ha...
Playing the Jerome Gambit is very risky business, and a serious member of the Jerome Gambit Gemeinde learns enough about the opening (starting with this blog, of course) to at least understand the imbalances that favor him (e.g. lack of the enemy King's safety) and the strategic ideas (e.g. advancing the "extra" pawns, attacking the enemy King) that are most likely to lead him to victory.
One significant advantage that the Jerome player has is that often his opponent is unfamiliar with the opening. A recent paper by Merim Bilalić and Peter McLeod, "Specialization Effect and its influence on Memory and Problem Solving in Expert Chess Players" has some interesting conclusions regarding familiarity with a position.
Expert chess players both remembered and solved problems arising from their area of opening specialization better than problems out side their specialization. We were also able to quantify the specialization effect - players remembered and
solved the problem stimuli within their specialization roughly at the level of players one SD [standard deviation] above them in skill but who lacked the specialized knowledge...
Looking at the Elo rating system, one standard deviation is 200 points. The study showed that players solving problems related to an opening that they played regularly performed that much better than those whose opening repertoire (i.e. specialization) was not related to the problems.
Under those circumstances, the unfamiliar players searched wider for solutions, and thus less deep. Those players familiar with the problem formations (because they came from openings that they played) were able to focus their search for solutions narrowly, and thus searched deeper.
Thus, the advantage (200 Elo points) of playing and knowing your openings against one who does not.
Under those circumstances, the unfamiliar players searched wider for solutions, and thus less deep. Those players familiar with the problem formations (because they came from openings that they played) were able to focus their search for solutions narrowly, and thus searched deeper.
Thus, the advantage (200 Elo points) of playing and knowing your openings against one who does not.
