Jerome Gambit Refuted by A 1140 Player

I have enjoyed email from players around the world who have discovered the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+). Some send games and analysis, which I always find helpful, even when it labeled, as a recent missive from Michael Dunagan, "Jerome Gambit refuted by a 1140 player: Me".

Let me share his note, as well as my response. (He sent position screenshots; I have replaced them with the underlying moves and my standard diagrams.)

Hi,

I first learned of the Jerome Gambit when YouTube suggested GM Amen Hambelton's episode.

I have been looking at it for four days since I first was shown it:

Essentially, I think Black just slips into a "Fried Liver" Defense with 6...Ke6, and it's good night ladies.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6

I do not have a chess engine but I thought White's best response is 7.f2-f4 attacking Black's Knight on e5.

7.f4

I guess chess.com has a little "scoreboard" to the left of the board.  The scoreboard likes 7...d7-d6 for Black. 

7...d6

White does get a Knight back with 8.f4xe5 and after 8...d6xe5  9.O-O controls the "F* file.

8.fxe5 dxe5 [Here White cannot castle, as suggested.]

If the White Queen checks instead with 7.Qh5-f5+, the King saunters to d6, 7...Ke6-d6 8.f2-f4 Qd8-e7.  Gotta take the Knight before it moves away to safety 9.f2xe5,  with the reply Qxe5 offering a.trade of Queens.

[From second diagram, above] 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 Qe7

Whether White trades Queens or not, he does not get Black's Dark Square Bishop, at least not in the opening as I have seen in other lines of play.

White would love to Castle but the c5 Bishop controls g1, the King's landing square.  White could "harrass a check" on f8, but as the Black King electric slides to c6, now she is under attack from the c5 Bishop and she must retreat with 4 escape landing spots: d8, f1, f3 f5 where the latter put the trade in play again.

I intuitively, down a Bishop for a Pawn, save the Queen with escaping to f3.  Chess.com agrees with this is the beat for White with (-5.38) as opposed to going back to e5 offering a trade (-6.25).

++++++

And now we are some 7-9 moves from the opening and white is going to have its head spin on how fast Black will develope with move like Ng8-f6 closing the "F" file and doubling up pressure on the d4 Pawn.

The best I could do for both sides

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 Qe7 9.fxe5+ Qxe5 10.Qf8+ Kc6 11.Qf3 Nf6 12.Nc3 d5 13.d3 Bg4

And now white has to trade Queens in order to not drop the pinned e4 Pawn.

Needless to say that chess.com believes this position is scores at (-5.81) or just short of a rook and a pawn or just short of two minor pieces.

And after this position,  I cannot find any chess.com good scoring moves for White.  I would think knocking the Black  bishop around with h2-g4 so a Queen side Castle would be good but it only increased Blacks score on chess.com...

Regards,

Michael P. Dunagan

Hi Mr. Dunagan,

Thank you for taking the time to analyze the Jerome Gambit, and then share what you have found with me.

It must have taken a good bit of time and effort to put all of that in, from your phone. I appreciate the effort.

It is not clear from GM Ambleton's hysterically funny video that I never said the Jerome Gambit was a great opening, or even a good one. Of course, my blog is approaching its 3,000th post, so there is no way that Aman would ever have read it all...😊

I do admit that I waited to the 5th blog post, back in 2008, to mention Henry Joseph Blackburne's fantastic crush of the Jerome Gambit:  Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1884 (0-1, 14). Most likely, if anybody has ever heard of the Jerome, they have seen this beauty.

It was probably blog post #17 when I first asked the question, "But - Is this stuff playable?" You might be surprised that my response was an immediate 

Of course not. The Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) has many refutations. I'm glad that's settled.

However, I wasn't finished.

     Maybe a more useful question would be --
     Under what conditions might the Jerome Gambit be playable?

     In casual or blitz games among "average" players , perhaps -- when Grandmaster Nigel Davies' words from his Gambiteer I (2007) are relevant:

Having examined literally thousands of club players’ games over the years, I have noticed several things:
1) The player with the more active pieces tends to win.
2) A pawn or even several pawns is rarely a decisive advantage.
3) Nobody knows much theory.
4) When faced with aggressive play, the usual reaction is to cower.

That is the gist of my work, right there. I was led by the question "Who is this Jerome guy, and why are they blaming this terrible opening on him?" The answers were fascinating.

I have published on my blog every refutation that I have found, and would be happy to publish yours. I have published almost every Jerome Gambit that I have played (I keep finding a few I missed) - won or lost. Especially lost.

While examining the history of "Jerome's Double Opening" I discovered something curious: there are players who have won a majority of their games with the Jerome Gambit, despite its refuted status. Some (including me) have won over 75% of the time. That's downright weird.

So, the blog also became an exploration for me into what I called "errors of thinking". I was fascinated: how did anyone ever lose to the Jerome Gambit?

All the while, people all over the world have sent me their games. Mostly club players - but some stronger players, too. I now have a database of Jerome and Jerome-related games containing over 62,000. Only 15,256 come directly from the line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, but that's still more than I ever thought I would find.

I think it's fun to have a chess "secret weapon". As defenders get stronger and wiser, the Jerome Gambit becomes, more than ever, a school for tactics. Sometimes, a school for defense. Always, a school for being aware of opportunities. At some point, the Jerome brings more pain to the user than it does to the defender, and it will be set aside.

Whew. That was a bit long. I would love to share with you my specific thoughts on your analysis, but I think I've taken up enough of your time right now.

Again, thank you for the work you have done. I look for the whole story of the Jerome Gambit, not just the dashing wins.

Best wishes,

Rick

Let me also add that Mr. Dunagan has also sent me "Improving the Jerome", but I am going to hold off on that one for a while.

Jerome Gambit: More Mysteries

Jerome Gambit games keep pouring in...

Another mystery (see "Jerome Gambit: Ghosts in the Defense") arrived the other day, followed, a few days later, by, yet, another. I want to share the games, and some perspective. I have made the name of the players of the Black pieces anonymous.

Eelco_Niermeijer - NN
10 0 blitz, Chess.com, 2020

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ng6 7.Qd5+ 

Black resigned

Okay...  How about

Eelco_Niermeijer - NN,
10 0 blitz, Chess.com, 2020

1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 

Black resigned

What was going on??

Three things, about the world of the Jerome Gambit.

I wanted to share something from GM Nigel Davies' fantastic book, Gambiteer I.

“Having examined literally thousands of club players’ games over the years, I have noticed several things: 

1) The player with the more active pieces tends to win. 

2) A pawn or even several pawns is rarely a decisive advantage. 

3) Nobody knows much theory. 

4) When faced with aggressive play, the usual reaction is to cower.”

That might explain the defender's behavior.  Meanwhile, to explain the attacker's attack, some input from Geoff Chandler, chess player, coach, and raconteur. I quote from one of his posts

Here is a one-move blunder table showing how severe the blunder needs to be in a game between two players of the same grade.

All players should be able to spot their opponent leaving a mate in one on. 

A 1200 player should win if an opponent blunders a Queen or a Rook. But not necessarily if they pick up a Bishop or Knight. 

1500 players often convert piece-up games into a win, but this is not the case if a pawn or two up. 

An 1800 player usually wins if they are two pawns up. 

In a game between two 2000+ players a blundered pawn is usually enough to win.

I think that Chandler's blunder table can be applied to time limits, as well. In correspondence play, a little material means a lot. In blitz or bullet play, though - sacrifice away!

Finally, an assessment from the Jerome Gambit player, himself, concerning the first game, although it could apply to the second as well.

The game started off with a normal Jerome Gambit. After ...Nxe5 I decided to go for the Queen check variation rather than the theoretically more solid d4 move forking the bishop and knight, mainly because I consider it to be a more active way to attack the king and eventually gain compensation for the sacrificed pieces. As soon as I checked the king with my queen, black started burning some serious time which suggests that this gambit might have caught him by surprise which is in my opinion the biggest advantage of the Jerome Gambit together with its fierce attack on the king side. As you can see in the game I sent you he eventually burned approximately 1 minute and 25 seconds, only in his sixth and final move. Which shows that the spontaneous nature of the gambit is its main advantage, as if this had been a quick 3 minute blitz game where this gambit is originally intended to be played, he would have already used half of his time in his first six moves. My opponent was probably considering the best way in which he could get out of check. He eventually decided to block the queen's check with his knight going for ...Ng6 probably because he was scared of playing something like ...g6 which would run into Qxe5 delivering a fork on the bishop and rook, or protecting his knight with a move like ...Ke6 which would expose his king in a very dangerous way. After my opponent played ...Ng6 both protecting his knight and blocking the check I decided to play Qd5+! which is as you already know the theoretical novelty that GM Aman Hambleton introduced in his video about the Jerome Gambit which has the idea of inviting black to play either Kf8 or Ke7 which allows white to capture the bishop with another check to continue his attack and to stop black from developing. Surprisingly enough, shortly after I played this move my opponent resigned because despite being objectively better, as he was two pieces up, he thought that he was losing because of the speed in which I played my moves which suggested that the Jerome Gambit was either some kind of tactic which he had blundered into or a very strong attack which I had brought prepared from home. The moral of the story is that he resigned a six move game being two pieces up and with plenty of time on the clock solely because of the speed of my moves and the position of his king...

But – Is this stuff playable?? (Part I)

Of course not.

The Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) has many refutations.

I'm glad that's settled.

Maybe a more useful question would be --
Under what conditions might the Jerome Gambit be playable?

In casual or blitz games among "average" players , perhaps -- when Grandmaster Nigel Davies' words from his Gambiteer I (2007) are relevant:

Having examined literally thousands of club players’ games over the years, I have noticed several things:
1) The player with the more active pieces tends to win.
2) A pawn or even several pawns is rarely a decisive advantage.
3) Nobody knows much theory.
4) When faced with aggressive play, the usual reaction is to cower.

I like the sound of that.

Also, what do you make of the following position?

White, down two pieces without compensation, is lost, right?

Actually, the game is Morphy - T. Knight, New Orleans 1856, which ended in the first player announcing checkmate in 17 moves.

And this position?

Morphy - Maurian, New Orleans, 1858, a win for White in 15 moves..

Ok, you're catching on. It's possible for a stronger player to give a weaker player odds of a piece or more and still have a fighting chance.

Just like someone could give "Jerome Gambit odds" in the right situation..

One more position: White is lost, right??

This is a trick position.

Vazquez - Giraudy
Mexico, 1876
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.d4 Bxd4 9.c3 Bb6 10.f4 Qf6 11.fxe5+ Qxe5 12.Bf4 Qxf4 13.Qxf4+ Ke7 14.Rf1 Nh6 15.Qe5+ Kd8 16.Qxg7 Re8 17.Qg5+ Re7 18.Rf8 mate

Andres Clemente Vazquez, the Mexican Champion and editor of La Estrategia Mexicane gave both Knight's and Jerome Gambit odds -- and still managed a checkmate in under 20 moves!