Jerome Gambit History Tidbits

A few of my recent Jerome Gambit discoveries...

Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1884
Stumbling over the infamous Jerome Gambit game Amateur - Blackburne, London in the Australian Town and Country Journal (Saturday, March 21, 1885, page 31) I found another comment that supported 1884 as the year of the game (as if there needed to be more than Dr. Tim Harding's words from the English Chess Forum, which I presented in "Jerome Gambit: Dr. Harding Checks In")

We reprint from the Adelaide Observer...The following affair occurred to the great blindfold player a few months ago in London... 

But the best part was the columnist's comment on the stunning move 4.Bxf7+: "So early in the morning!"


Emanuel Lasker, columnist
The Evening Post: New York  from Wednesday, November 30, 1910, (page 11) had Emanuel Lasker's "CHESS AND CHESS PLAYERS" column, including the following news

...At the rooms of the Rice Chess Club in the Cafe Boulevard, the team representing the Temple Chess Club of the Baptist Temple of Brooklyn encountered the team Stuyvesant High School, and, although handicapped by the absence of two players, causing forfeiture on two boards, the Brooklyn players carried off the victory by the score of 3 points to 2... The Temple Chess Club players had the white pieces on the odd-numbered boards. The Jerome gambit, king's bishop opening, and French defence were adopted at the last three boards...

Although the copy of the paper is at times difficult to make out, it appears that Board 3 was a match between E. E. Brodhead of the Temple C.C. and Gadiowitz of Stuyvesant H.S., with Brodhead's Jerome Gambit carrying the day. I have not yet discovered the game.

It should be recalled that Lasker, responding to a letter to “Our Question Box” in the March 1906 issue of Lasker’s Chess Magazine had already said his peace about the opening 

No; the Jerome gambit is not named after St. Jerome. His penances, if he did any, were in atonement of rather minor transgressions compared with the gambit.

Emanuel Lasker, Simultaneous Exhibition 
The Observer (Adelaide) of Saturday, December 29, 1906 (page 49) has in its CHESS column, under CHESS NOTES, the following

Simultaneous Chess. - Lasker, playing at Pittsburg, Pa., lately, out of 28 games won 24, drew 2, and lost 2, a fine score of 25-3. The openings adopted were varied - Sicilian Defence 3, Centre Gambit 5, Petroff 1, Evans 4, Four Knights 2, Vienna 1, Jerome 1, King's Knight 1, King's Gambit 5, French 2, Allgaier 2 and only 1 Ruy Lopez.

It would seem that the source of Observer column was the October 18, 1906 (page 9) Pittsburgh Press article titled "DR. LASKER PLAYED 26 GAMES OF CHESS AT ONCE.  He Succeeded in Winning 22 of Them and Drawing 2." It is unclear why the two news reports differ in the number of games reported being played and won; and the Pittsburgh Press names 27 club members who were seated against Lasker, so apparently at least one board was covered by two players.

The Jerome Gambit (neither a win nor a draw for White) was played by E. H. Miller. (This is likely Emlen Hare Miller, who, a decade later, had a win [opening unknown] against Frank J. Marshall in a simultaneous exhibition.)

Of note

Before the contest began Lasker made an address on "The Game of Chess and the Game of Life," which was highly appreciated by his listeners.

How I would love to discover how Lasker defended against the Jerome Gambit!
  
Beware, chess students, the dreaded Jerome Gambit
The Telegraph (Brisbane) of Saturday, December 14, 1929, (page 13) had a "CHESS" column that gave the Jerome Gambit a greater sense of scariness than I had realized it had ever projected   

Chess students are early taught to watch out for the dreaded Jerome Gambit, an attack however that owes its success mainly to the inexperience of the attacked. Unsound it undoubtedly is, but white obtains a ferocious offensive requiring on the part of black the very greatest care. An ounce of practice, we are told, is worth a ton of theory, so the following game in the case isoffered. It is a win by the famous Blackburne with the black; of course it is not given to us all to be Blackburne...

A Scholarly Abrahams Jerome Gambit

Philidor 1792 - guest124
5 0 blitz, www.bereg.ru, 2014

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 

Philidor1792 would be having a lucky day, indeed, if he were now able to pull off the "scholar's mate" - 3...Nf6? 4.Qxf7#.

3...Qf6 4.Bxf7+ Qxf7 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxe7+ Nxe7

The game has experienced an interesting transformation, almost transposing into an Abrahams Jerome Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7 4.Qh5+ Ke8* 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxe7+ Nxe7, like the game in the previous post.  (See "A New Abrahams Jerome Gambit", as well as "Abrahams Jerome Gambit" Part I and Part II).

Of course, Black's 4th move, above, is illegal, but if he were to play, instead, 4...Kf8, and the game proceeded similarly otherwise with 5.Qxe5 Qe7 6.Qxe7 Nxe7, that would be a legitimate Abrahams Jerome Gambit; and if Black were later to play ...Kf7 to allow castling-by-hand, as in Philidor1792 - guest543, www.bereg.ru, 2014, the transformation would be complete.

By the way, I have not been able to find many games starting 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 Qf6 (or 3...Qe7) 4.Bxf7+ (although I did speculate about the line and Alonzo Wheeler Jerome in "Proto-Jerome Gambits? (Part 2)"), but all of them have been put into The Database. I plan on checking through my issues of Randspringer to see if there is any analysis there.

If all of this seems a bit egregious,  I should remind Readers of Emmanuel Lasker's best, if not the last, words on the Jerome Gambit, responding to a letter to “Our Question Box” in the March 1906 issue of Lasker’s Chess Magazine

No; the Jerome gambit is not named after St. Jerome. His penances, if he did any, were in atonement of rather minor transgressions compared with the gambit.

The picture at the top of this post is of St. Jerome.

7.c3 d5 8.d4 Bb6 9.e5 c5 10.dxc5 Bxc5 11.f4 Nbc6 12.Nf3 Be6

You have to have faith in the "Jerome pawns" to play on in this kind of position.

13.Na3 Bxa3 14.bxa3 0-0-0 15.Be3 Rhf8 16.Ng5 Bf5 17.Kf2 h6 18.Nf3 Be4 

19.h4 Nf5 20.Rad1 b6 21.h5 Na5 22.Bc1 Nc4 23.Rh3 Kb7 24.g4 Ne7 

25.e6 Bxf3 26.Rxf3 Rd6 27.f5 Rfd8 28.Re1 d4 29.cxd4 Rxd4 30.f6 gxf6 31.Rxf6 Nd6 

32.Rf4 Rd3 33.Rf7 Re8 34.Bxh6 Kc6 35.Rf8 Rxa3 36.Rxe8 Nxe8 37.Bf8 Rxa2+ 38.Kg3 

Although both sides have passed pawns, White's are better placed, and Black's defense is difficult - especially at the end of a 5-minute game.

38...Nd5 39.h6 Ra3+ 40.Bxa3 Black resigned

Jerome Gambit: Early Opening Tomes (Part 2)

In 1891, reflecting the chess world's ambivalence about the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+), G.H.D. Gossip's Chess Player's Vade Mecum and Pocket Guide to the Openings Gossip had analysis of the Jerome, while his Theory of Chess Openings did not. The Handbuch was silent as well.

By 1900 a reader could still find references, but they might be delegated to instruction for novices. Chess Openings for Beginners, by Edward Ernest Cunnington, for example, exhausts itself with "Here we may mention, with a caution, as being quite unsound, the Jerome Gambit." The following year, Cunnington's The Modern Chess Primer mentions the first 6 moves of the named gambit.

In 1902, William Cook's (of Synopsis) The Chess Player's Compendium had no mention of the Jerome Gambit. For that matter, neither did his 1906 The Evolution of the Chess Openings.

Perhaps the 1904 The Complete Chess Guide, by G.H.D Gossip F.J. Lee, showed the Jerome Gambit's hanger-on status best. At the start of the book the authors proclaim

We have therefore eliminated obsolete openings and confined ourselves merely to a brief examination of a dozen of the leading debuts...; omitting those openings in which the defense is declared by the most competent theorists to be weak or inferior, as for example Philidor's and Petroff's Defenses to the Kings Knight's opening; the Sicilian; the Greco Counter Gambit; Center Counter Gambit; Fianchettoes, Blackwar [sic] and Jerome Gambit, etc.

HOWEVER, Part III of the book, "Guide to the Openings," contained Jerome Gambit analysis!

It was left up to the March 1906 edition of Lasker's Chess Magazine to pronounce
"Our Question Box"

Ichabodf: - No; the Jerome gambit is not named after St. Jerome. His penances, if he did any, were in atonement of rather minor transgressions compared with the gambit.