Jerome Gambit: History Reset

NN - Blackburne, London, 1884

The other day, I stumbled over a remark (from May 22, 2017) by zanzibar, at the Chessgames.com website. He was commenting on the (in)famous Jerome Gambit game,  NN - Blackburne, casual game, London, 1884, and noted

Fine uses a position from this game (p088, d135), after Black's 12th move, but omits the White queen on a8.

zanzibar was referring to Reuben Fine's The Middle Game in Chess (David McKay, 1952), the chapter on "The Mating Attack". After giving the diagram (see above), Fine wrote [descriptive notation changed to algebraic notation]

Blackburne also found the mate in diagram 135 during a blindfold seance. He played 1...Qxh3+!! 2.gxh3 Bxe4 mate

It is likely that, in his diagram, GM Fine left off White's Queen from a8, where it was placed in the game, for instructional purposes, as it arrived on that square after accepting Black's double Rook sacrifice, in the most scruffy of chess openings, where White had sacrificed two pieces - all too much distraction from the case at hand.

GM Fine's contention that the game was played blindfold also raises an eyebrow. The Illustrated London News' May 10,1884 account of the game makes no mention of Blackburne playing blindfold. Indeed, Mr Blackburne's Games at Chess (1899) places the game in the "Games Played Off-Hand, Simultaneously or at Odds" chapter, rather than the "Games Played Blindfold" chapter.

Interestingly, the Blackburne position in The Middle Game in Chess follows one given by Fine as

reached by Pillsbury in a blindfold exhibition 

What is a bit odd about this is that Pillsbury was, according to the diagram, playing the Black pieces - usually the blindfold player is given the White pieces. For example, Jaques N. Pope's Harry Nelson Pillsbury American Chess Champion (Pawn Island Press, 1996), contains almost 250 blindfold games, and Pillsbury has White in all but one of the games. While P.W. Sergeant and W.H. Watts, in their Pillsbury's Chess Career (American Chess Bulletin, 1922) suggest that "he must have played many thousands such games" - only one of their 44 blindfold games had Pillsbury with Black.

Fortunately, Pope comes to the rescue. On the first page of his "Other Games" chapter, he gives the following position, from which follows "a pretty combination he played as black in a knight odds game [emphasis mine] in 1899." Popes's reference is Vol. XIX, no. 22, November 25, 1899, the Literary Digest, which gives the piece placement in a "Pillsbury Brilliancy", describing it as coming from an

offhand game betwen Pillsbury and a strong amateur, the latter securing the odds of a Kt. 

Amateur - Pillsbury, 1899 (Kt odds)

 1...Qf7 2.Bxe4 Reaching the position that Fine started with in his diagram [descriptive notation changed to algebraic notation]. 2...Qf1+ 3.Bg1 Qf3+ 4.Bxf3 Bxf3 checkmate.

(I mean no offense to the memory GM Fine, whose chess set I would have been unworthy to carry. History needed a reset, and I've done it before.) 

Jerome Gambit: Over the Rainbow (Part 1)

Over the years, I have loosely classified Jerome Gambit games by strategy: "White attacks aggressively", "Black counter-attacks aggressively", and "Black counters well, so White adopts a slow, solid, come-get-me approach". That covers a lot of games in The Database.

Then there are games like the following, however, which might as well be classified as "somewhere over the rainbow". 

Wall, Bill - Guest4105968
PlayChess.com, 2018

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5. Nxe5+ Ke6

The move appears in 28 games in The Database (updated). It is somewhat understood, after some serious blog coverage, here - the most recent being in another of Bill Wall's games from 2 years ago (see "Jerome Gambit: This Is How It's Done"), where I wrote

This move follows the "psychology" of "If you want me to take the Knight, then I won't take the Knight", but it is simply not a good move. It is relatively rare: The Database has 24 games, with White scoring 65% . 

Still, it is worth knowing the followup, as this "defense" has shown up in the games of Jerome Gambit regulars: blackburne, MrJoker, Petasluk, stretto, UNPREDICTABLE, and ZahariSokolov. I have faced it a couple of times and come away with wins. 

In fact, I have posted a disproportionate number of times on the line - although, in fairness, they were all interesting posts, going back to "You, too, can add to Jerome Gambit theory" and including "A Strange, But Intriguing Path, Parts 1, 2, & 3" and "Still Strange, Still Intriguing Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4." The most recent post on the line is "We Know What We're Doing (Sort of)".  

Curiously enough, there is still more to learn about the variation, as we shall see.

6.Qg4+

This move, Stockfish 9's preference, is probably the best move, although it has appeared only 5 times in The Database before the current game.

Actually, computer analysis is only slightly helpful in choosing the proper move. Some examples are: 6.d4, evaluated as 0.00 by Stockfish 9 at 35 ply, is seen as the second best move; while the retrograde 6.Nf3!? (no games in The Database), evaluated as -.28 by Stockfish 9 at 35 ply, is seen as the third best move.

Certainly 6.0-0 (no games in The Database) should be playable, although Stockfish 9 at 35 ply evaluates it as -.65 - what's 2/3 of a pawn between friends, right? The game should continue  6...Nxe5 (the only move for advantage) 7.d4 d6.

Most popular for White, and probably most thematic, has been 6.Nxc6, which Stockfish 9 evaluates (at 35 ply) as -.81 after 6...dxc6. A mistake is 6...bxc6?, as it is strongly met by 7.Qg4+!. Black can mix everything up by not capturing the Knight and playing, instead, 6...Qh4!? although Stockfish 9 rates the position after 7.Qe2, then, as roughly even, +.10 (at 35 ply).

With Stockfish 9 pontificating as usual, it is important to remember that we are usually talking about games between club players, and Geoff Chandler's humorous but accurate blunder table always needs to be taken into account - especially because we are talking about the Jerome Gambit! Play what you feel comfortable playing.

6... Kxe5 7.d4+! Bxd4 8.Bf4+! Kf6 9.Bg5+! Kf7 10.Bxd8 Nxd8

Okay, White has played the "best" moves, and now has a Queen and a pawn for three pieces. As Dorothy said, in "The Wizard of Oz", "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Indeed, the position looks like a challenge to play. Nobody is going to attack or counter-attack aggressively, and it looks like it would be to White's disadvantage to sit back and do nothing.

(By the way, the snarky 10...Bxb2?!, instead of capturing the Knight at d8, would be met by 11.Qf3+! Ke8 12.Bxc7, when, after 12...Bxa1 13.Na3, White would have an advantage in development and King safety to offset the material imbalance [Q + P vs R + B + N]. White can respond to either 13...d5 or 13...Nf6 with 14.0-0 and Black will not be able to get his defenders out fast enough, as they will also have to run the risk of going to the wrong square and being picked off by the enemy Queen with a checking fork. This is a return to the Jerome theme of "White attacks aggressively".)

Looking for guidance, I discovered that the venerable Basic Chess Endings by Reuben Fine (1941) has about 1/4 of a page covering "QUEEN vs THREE PIECES", which can easily be summarized

Without Pawns this is drawn, but there are a few positions where the pieces win... With Pawns the two forces are roughly equivalent. However, with no other material Q + P vs 3 pieces is drawn, while 3 pieces + Pawn win vs Queen. 

The newer Fundamental Chess Endings (2001) by Karsetn Mueller and Frank Lamprecht has about a page of coverage, devoted to the analysis of two game examples, and the terse bit of advice

Outposts, king security and passed pawns again play a major role

 I then checked out the internet to see what was available. One such article that I found to be helpful is here.

All of this information is enlightening, but, in the meantime, two people were playing the game.

[to be continued]

On the Road Again

"Kennedy Kid" Jon is on the road again, home from Haiti briefly, now off to Guatemala for a month to improve his Spanish language skills.

As I did with his stay in Uganda, as well as Haiti, I have begun to learn about chess in Guatemala.

For example, I learned that Silvia Carolina Mazariegos was Guatemalan Women's Chess Champion for the years 1981 - 1994. She returned as champion 2001, 2002 and 2004. During the same span of time the Men's title was dominated by Carlos Armando Juárez Flores, who was champion in 1980, 1983-88, 1991, 1993-1995, and 1998-2007. 

The Guatemalan Defense, 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Ba6, was covered in The Myers Openings Bulletin (New MOB No. 1, 3, and 4) in 1992 and 1993. Myers presented three games from the 1930s played by Hans Cohn, from his 1947 book Ajedrez en Guatemala, which had a chapter on "Defensa Guatemalteca". The MOB also gave the first part of a 1939 game by Georges Koltanowski (vs Cohn) and the first part of 1943 game by Reuben Fine, from a blindfold simultaneous exhibition.

Wrote Myers

It [the chapter on Defensa Guatemalteca] starts with a long quote from a 1913 magazine article by emanuel Lasker, expressing Cohn's opening philosophy. Summing up, it says that the ideas lefense will stop any attack, lead to counterattack, and enable Black to play for a win "si el blanco desconoce sus posibilidades o las sobreestima" [if White doesn't know about its possibilities or overestimates them]; I haven't seen Lasker's original German, but I found two of those Spanish words to be interesting: "desconoce" means doesn't know about, but it can have a sense of deliberately ignoring. As for "sobreestima", one might expect White to have problems when he underestimates an unfamiliar defense, but the Spanish word, which also means having too much respect for something, makes sense. Fear of the unknown affects judgement. When faced by a surprising opening a player may imagine dangers which are not really there. There or not, he'll spend time looking for them and trying to defend against them.

Hmmm, sounds like an opening I know...

If Jon gets around to playing any more Jerome Gambits (see "Artificial Ignorance" parts 1 and 2), I'll let you know.