Wow!
Nikolai Kalinichenko, a correspondence grandmaster, has written The Club Player's Modern Guide To Gambits: Fighting Chess from the Get-go (Russell Enterprises, 2019).
I was excited, and, since his focus was on "club players", and he was looking at "fighting chess from the get-go" I could not wait to see what he had written on the Jerome Gambit.
Checking out the table of contents, I was pleased to see that his list of gambits included some of the offbeat gambits, such as the Cochrane Gambit, the Latvian Gambit, the Sicilian Wing Gambit, the Icelandic Gambit, the von Hennig-Schara Gambit, the Englund Gambit, and even the Blackmar Diemer Gambit.
Alas, no Jerome Gambit.
Even if it had been a chapter on "How to Defeat the Jerome Gambit", it would have been interesting and welcome. (I guess you will have to settle for the blog posts "An International Master Refutes the Jerome Gambit" and "A GM Faces the Jerome Gambit [Part 1 and 2]").
Oh, well, maybe next time.
I recently heard from Gary K. Gifford, editor, that the latest issue of the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter - #35, September, 2018 - is now available for download, online at Yahoo! Groups (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Chess-Unorthodox-UON/files/UON%2035_Sept_2018_merged.pdf?guccounter=1)
I have mentioned UON on this blog a number of times, for its coverage of a large number of unorthodox openings - including, of course, the Jerome Gambit.
It's like welcoming back and old friend who hasn't been by in a while.
Here's a peek at Issue #35
1. 2 King’s Gambits and a Latvian, by Gary K. Gifford
2. Jerome Gambit Game #1, Rick Kennedy
3. Jerome Gambit Game # 2, Bill Wall
4. Combats homériques à partir des gambits, Dany Sénéchaud
(Homeric* Fights from the Gambits)
5. Diemer-Duhm Gambit, Bob Jansen
Check it out.
While looking for "secrets" in the Jerome Gambit - moves or lines of play that have been discovered or recommended, but rarely, if ever, used - I occasionally run across some ideas that deserve to remain secret, because they're not really all that good.
Let me share a couple, to show you what I mean.
What do you make of this line from weenar - Quixote, blitz, FICS, 2000 (0-1, 8)?
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Ng1
Wow.
White sacrifices his Bishop at f7 to disturb Black's King, and then decides that that is enough generosity for one day. Ah, but his King's Knight is in the way of his rampaging Queen - one of the benefits, he begrudgingly admits, of 5.Nxe5+ is that it opens the d1-h5 diagonal, admittedly at the cost of another piece.
So, the solution presents itself - move the Knight home!
A similar idea (admittedly, not after a piece sacrifice) comes to mind in such lines as 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Ng8!?, the Brooklyn variation of Alekhine's Defense; 1.d4 Nc6 2.d5 Nb8!?; and Stefan Bucker's 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.exf5 e4 4.Ng1!? against the Latvian Gambit.
Not surprisingly, the 1 win that White has out of the 5 games with the position in The Database - is a time forfeit, when Black had a winning position. One plan for Black is 5...Qh4!? 6.Qe2 Nd4 7.Nf3!? Nxe2 8.Nxh4 Nxc1, and the Queens will be off the board as White tries to find compensation for his sacrificed piece (no worry, Black's Knight at c1 will fall, but White will still only have a doubled pawn as compensation).
But, let us not laugh too loudly. What do you think of the following line?
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Ng5+
Move that Knight!
This time: not so funny. There are 515 games in The Database with 5.Ng5+. Is it surprising, or not surprising, that White scores 24%?
One "idea" behind this un-blocking Knight move is that White simply didn't notice that his piece would hang - on the average, White's rating is about 100 points below his opponent. On the other hand, there are a significant number of games where Black does not take the Knight - an indication that we are probing the depths of club and blitz play, not grandmaster praxis.
Another idea is the pair of threats - should Black capture the Knight with 5...Qxg5 - embodied in 6.d4!?, attacking both the Queen and the Bishop at c5. It is a hallucination, however, as Black has the crushing 6...Qxg2 and White is in great misery, e.g. 7.Rf1 Qxe4+ 8.Be3 Nxd4 - two pieces down, behind in development, King in danger...
Why do Jerome Gambiteers play this kind of stuff? Because it's fun, I guess.
For my birthday my wife gave me James Schuyler's Your Opponent is Overrated (Everyman Chess, 2016). I appreciate the subtitle: A Practical Guide to Inducing Errors.
I have not gotten into the book, but the text on the back cover is enticing
Which opening does better in practice: the wild, "unsound" and "refuted" Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5) or the solid Philidor Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6)? As James Schuyler points out, referring to the definative Megabase, the Latvian Gambit scores higher.
How can such a discredited opening (and the same story is repeated with other "unsound" openings) do so well? the point is that playing like this throws the opponent off balance, makes them anxious and induces mistakes.Even the very best players recognise the value of discomforting the opponent. Historically, Emanuel Lasker was the master of this approach and his modern day equivalent is world champion Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen frequently employs offbeat openings and his opponents invariably fail to counter them correctly.
This is the key theme of this book. Schuyler covers all phases of the game and discusses other vital subjects such as harassment, meterial imbalance, time management, surprise moves, unusual ideas, provocative play, manoeuvers and recovering from bad positions.
I am pretty sure that the author "overlooks" an opening as "discredited" as the Jerome Gambit, but I think that it is likely that many of his ideas in the book will relate to playing the Jerome!
It is fun to start the day off reading a new discussion at Chess.com with the title of today's post, "What well known gambits are unsound?"
The original poster started off with the Latvian Gambit and the Albin Counter Gambit.
The very first responder chimed in with the Jerome Gambit!
As I've posted before, P.T. Barnum (a contemporary of Alonzo Wheeler Jerome) liked to say that “there’s no such thing as bad press, as long as they spell your name right.”
I was thumbing through the awesome-looking and greatly-titled 1.d4 – Beat the Guerrillas! A Powerful Repertoire Against Annoying Black Sidelines by Valeri Bronznik when my eyes were drawn to his chapter on the Marshall Defense to 1.d4, that is 1...d5 2.c4 Nf6.
I always get a smile when a "real" chess writer (especially a professional, titled player) makes reference to one of my games (it has happened in Blackmar Diemer Gambit and Latvian Gambit books) or some of my analysis.
His favorable reference to my article "Alexander Alekhine and Marshall’s 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nf6!?" in Kaissiber #27 (it appeared in both the German language and Italian language editions; and later on in English, online) was an early Christmas present for me.
My buddy A B Hailey
likes to adopt the nickname "Mad Dog"
when he's playing chess.
He's partial to the Evans Gambit and the Sicilian Dragon.
He's been known to ball-bat my Blackmar Diemer Gambits and Latvian Gambits, too. (One of our games shows up in
Tony Kosten's The Latvian Gambit Lives!)
Somehow "Mad Dog" got interested in playing the Jerome Gambit... Probably the bad influence of good friends, or something like that.
I like to refer to him as the "unluckiest Jerome Gambit player in the world."
You've seen his first effort in "Jerome Gambit Tournament: Chapter II," abhailey - peonconorejas, net-chess.com, 2008 (0-1, 20) -- just his luck to find someone with the calculating skills of a computer to overturn past theory and execute a nifty Queen sac!
Does "Mad Dog" give up? Of course not!
He comes right back with another Jerome:
abhailey - cruciverbalist
net-chess.com, 2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 Qe7
Yippie...
By accident or design Black plays Whistler's Defense -- one of the numerous refutations of the Jerome Gambit.
8.Qf4+ Nf6
He, he, he...
One of the "problems" with a refutation, though, is you have to play it properly. After 8...Qf6 "Mad Dog" can finish his day playing "World of Warcraft." After the text, he's back in the game.
9.e5 Re8 10.d4 Bxd4 11.Qxd4 Qxe5+ 12.Qxe5 Rxe5+ 13.Be3 Nd5
Oddly enough, up until this point the game has been following Jerome - Jaeger, correspondence, 1879 which continued with the inaccurate 13...Ng4, but then Black simply outplayed White: 14.0–0 d5 15.Nc3 c6 16.Bd4 Re7 17.h3 Nh6 18.g4 b6 19.f4 Bb7 20.b4 Rc8 21.Na4 Re4 22.c3 Ba6 23.Rf2 Bb5 24.Nxb6 axb6 25.Bxb6 Rce8 26.Kg2 Ke6 27.a4 Ba6 28.Bc5 Kd7 29.Rb1 Rb8 30.Kg3 Rc4 31.Rc1 Ng8 32.f5 Nf6 33.Ba7 Rbxb4 34.Kg2 Ne4 35.Rf3 Rb2+ 36.Kh1 Rxa4 37.fxg6 Raa2 38.Bg1 hxg6 39.Re1 Nf2+ 40.Bxf2 Rxf2 41.Rg3 Be2 42.Kg1 Bf3 43.Re3 Be4 44.c4 Rh2 45.Kf1 Jaeger announced a mate in three at this point. 0–1
In our game, the attacker chomps on and does not let go.
14.0–0 Nxe3 15.fxe3+ Kg7 16.Nc3 a6 17.Rf3 b5 18.Raf1 Bb7
My analysis buddy Rybka sees the position as equal, and recommends a line where White forces the draw: 18...b4 19.Rf7+ Kg8 20.Rf8+ Kg7 21.R1f7+ Kh6 22.Rh8 bxc3 23.Rhxh7+ Kg5 24.h4+ Kg4 25.Rf4+ Kg3 26.Rf3+ Kg4 27.Rf4+ etc.
19.Rf7+ Kh6 20.Rxd7 Rxe3 21.Rxc7 Be4 22.Re7 Rd8 23.Rxe4 Rxe4 24.Nxe4
The extra piece and pawn are enough to win.
24...Rd4 25.Re1 a5 26.h3 a4 27.c3 Rd5 28.Rf1 Re5 29.Nd6 Re2 30.Rf2 Re1+ 31.Kh2 Re7 32.Nxb5 g5 33.c4 Kh5 34.c5 Re8 35.c6 Rc8 36.c7 h6 37.Rf7 Kg6 38.Rd7 Kh5 39.Rd8 Rxc7 40.Nxc7 Kh4 41.Rd6 g4 42.g3+ Kg5 43.h4+ Kf5 44.Rxh6 Ke5 45.Re6+ Kf5 46.h5 a3 47.bxa3 Kg5 48.h6 Kf5 49.h7 Kg5 50.h8Q Kf5 51.Qf6 checkmate
Later "Mad Dog" even "Jerome-ized" a semi-Italian opening by meeting 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 with 4.Bxf7+ -- but that is a story for another time,
(Mad dog, sheriff artwork compliments of Jeff Bucchino, "The Wizard of Draws")
