Jerome Gambit: Catching Up

With many new chess players discovering the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7) and this blog, there is an opportunity to learn a great deal more about the opening, the person who created it, and the people who play it.

But, do you have to go back to the beginning - "Welcome!" - and read almost 3,000 blog posts?? No, of course not.

If you have an interest in a particular player, or a particular topic, or even a particular move, you can always use the "Search This Blog" function, on the right. Searching a string of moves, say "4.Bxf7+ Kf8 5.Bxg8 Kxg8" can also be effectively done with general search engines like Google or Bing, which will turn up links to this blog.

You can also visit the "Retro" page, which has easy links to pages of interest, with lots of information.

Or you can take the multi-part Jerome Gambit quiz, starting here.

There is a page, with links, that discusses the timeless, but relevant question, "Is the Jerome Gambit playable?"

Finally, for a deep dive into the Jerome Gambit, you can read the multi-part article that I wrote for Stefan Bücker's chess magazine, Kaissiber. He tried and he tried and he tried to make the article fit, but I think the Jerome was a bit too irregular for him.

Jerome Gambit: New Games Coming

GM Aman Hambleton, of CHESSBRAHS, over at chess.com, also at Twitch, has stirred up a good bit of interest in the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) in the last few days, due to his video (mentioned in the previous post) concerning the Jerome (it can be found on YouTube.com).

I also have to credit GM Eric Hansen, who I watched on the CHESSBRAHS site try for two hours to get a Jerome Gambit game going, but was frustrated in his attempts. 

As a result, I have received many emails and messages, as well as a good selection of new Jerome Gambit games - including one by the computer program Leela Chess Zero, rated over 3600!  

I plan to share those games, although it may take me a few days to get them posted on this blog. Please be patient - and keep an eye out.

In the meantime, it is always possible to use the "search this blog" function to explore this site further. I have also found that if I use an internet search engine (like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo) for a string of moves - say, "6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 Qe7" it will turn up links to relevant posts on this blog.

Thank you - Rick   

Jerome Gambit: Naughty Opening

I have a Google Alert set up to notify me about the appearances of the name "Jerome Gambit" on the internet.

This morning it returned a link to a discussion on Reddit.com started by Chessmusings, that leads off

My favorite "naughty opening" is the Jerome Gambit. What's yours?

Cool. I appreciate the mention of my name, and this blog as well.

The Italian Party Stunt

With the help of Google.com, I recently stumbled over a discussion of the Jerome Gambit, and the game Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1885, at KasparovChess.

Not familiar with the Russian language, I took advantage of Google's offer to translate the internet site's pages, and had several good laughs - starting with the title of the discussion in the forum, "The Italian Party Stunt 4.Sf7+". Indeed!

The site has an English translation, which has to be better than Google's. (I know, I know, "party" means "game", but it's hard not to laugh - there and elsewhere - anyhow.)

Of additional interest in the forum is the comment: 
В той же книге Вайнштейна "Ловушки ферзьбери"было доказано,что в этой позиции Белые играют 10.д4!(а не 10.с3?)и отбивают атаку.

This seems to refer to a book on traps by Weinstein - with an analytical suggestion for the Jerome Gambit / Blackburne game. Can anyone (other than Google) help with the translation of this Russian comment to English? Is any Reader familiar with the referred-to book? Is it an early work by Kasparov?

The suggestion of 10.d4 (!) is interesting in light of the earlier (5 1/2 years ago) discussion in "A Question of Theory and Practice" and "Sources".

A World-Wide Phenomenon

The folks at Blogger.com who host this blog have installed a nifty "Stats" feature that provides me with useful data, such as which pages have been seen how often, for the day, week, month, or the whole life of the blog.

The list of the top pageviews by country, for "all time", for instance, is quite interesting. Number 1 is the United States which is not too surprising. It is followed by the United Kingdom and Canada.

After that, Number 4 is France and Number 5 is Russia. Number 6, is Brazil. There follow Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and Italy.

This list varies somewhat from the data that I get from Google Analytics, my regular stat provider, which gives the following list:

1. United States
2. Brazil
3. United Kingdom
4. Canada 
5. Denmark
6. France
7. Germany
8. Poland
9. Italy
10. Belgium

25. Russia

59. South Korea

Whichever source is "right", it is clear that interest in the Jerome Gambit is a world-wide phenomonon!

The Jerome Gambit pops up in the oddest places...

I was doing a Google Books search for Jerome Gambit references, and came across the following one from a review in The British Chess Magazine, Volume 108, 1988




Lettisches Gambit by Dr. L. Orban, Verlag Das Schach Archiv, Hamburg x: 1987 L. 90pp. ₤ 7.12 overseas ₤7.32 US $13.50

100 games with light notes on 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 f5. Also four - numbered five - supplementary games, though one of these illogically opens 2.Bc4 f5 and another one: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 Bxf7+ - The Jerome Gambit! Many CC games of course.

The Westminster Papers

Using Google Books to search the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) I recently came across Volume XI of The Westminster Papers of London, "A Monthly Journal of Chess, Whist, Games of Skill, and The Drama" which had this note in its February 1, 1879 issue:

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

CHESS

H.W.P. (Vermont, U.S., A.) -- We shall be most happy to receive some games fairly well played, in which the Jerome Double Gambit was adopted. They will be handed to our annotator in due course, and will analyse them in an unprejudiced and impartial manner.

The March and April issues which complete Volume XI have no further reference to Jerome's Gambit – and this is unfortunate, as they were the last issues of The Westminster Papers to be published.

The refererence to the chess player "H.W.P" of Vermont is also a mystery to me at this point.

Readers able to shed a light on this are encouraged to either post a "comment" or contact me via email.

Graphic by Jeff Bucchino, wizardofdraws

London Calling... Six Months of Blog

Dear Jerome Gambit Gemeinde,

It's been 6 months since I first posted on this blog (see "Welcome!") and it's been a daily pleasure since then to find something about the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) to share with you.

According to Google Analytics, 40% of the visitors to this blog have been here 25 times or more. Twenty-three per cent have visited over 200 times!

About 50% of the visitors have only been here one or two times, though, so I still have a lot of work to do...

Responding to the discussions that I've been having with Pete Banks ("blackburne") – such as in the "Comments" section of "Jerome Gambit: Transylvanian Terror" – I began presenting the "Jerome Gambit: Drilling Down" series, which will ultimately contain 30 posts. (By the way, I realize that I could have used a graphic of an oil rig – instead of a hand-held electric drill – for the "drilling down" icon, but the latter seemed to better represent the personal computer and its software...)

I am also working on a "Jerome Gambit: Deep Analysis" series that will tap into my database as never before.

In the meantime, I will continue to post Jerome Gambit games as I play them, or as you send them to me. Any Jerome Gambit news that you can use – I will place it here as I get it.

After all, we're only about a couple of weeks away from blog post #200!

Best wishes,

Rick Kennedy ("perrypawnpusher")

p.s. If you've been thinking about creating your own chess blog, you might want to stop by Michael Goeller's site, "The Kenilworthian", for his take on "Web Publishing, 2.0 Style" which is quite informative.

"This site may harm your computer"

I love to use Google and other search engines to find Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) references.

I just ran across the following, though, and I have no interest at all in discovering what it says!

Beware: don't try it yourself, either!

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