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.
Periodically in this new year we will be looking at different lines in the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) and be providing ideas (and study material) which may deliver "first aid" or heavier "fixes" in situations where White's play has been injured.
Here is a game by HauntedKnight, a regular player of things Jerome. He has 144 games in The Database, scoring an over-all 49%, which is the over-all average for White in those 27,400 games. With the Jerome Gambit proper he scores 42%, which is comparable to the 43% of all Jerome Gambit games in The Database. HauntedKnight - Josue standard game, FICS, 2012 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
With some time available recently, I've downloaded more Jerome Gambit (and related) games from the FICS database, making The Database current through July 2012. That's still not "up to date," but I'm working on it... Bill Wall is pulling together a database of his games for the year, and there's usually a few Jerome Gambits hiding there. The more, the merrier! Also, I just caught up with the results of the 2nd Jerome Gambit Race at Chess.com. (The 1st Race was covered on this blog earlier this year.) Rrustyy1 6-2-0 oleppedersen 4-4-0 Jordi-I 4-4-0 quixote 3-4-1 DeDrijver 2-5-1 I hope to present games from this tournament soon. (I noticed that DeDrijver played in the Chess.com "Play the Jerome Gambit Quad" posted about earlier.) graphic from the Wizard of Draws
The Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) is a club player's opening. That's who plays it, that's who analyzes it (with a few exceptions, like NM Eric Schiller and IM Gary Lane), that's who improves it and that's who finds ways to stymie it.
Part of the excitement of the opening for me is the way players can put a personal touch on it. Pete Banks ("blackburne") has popularized the Banks Variation (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Kf8 6.Qh5) and continues to win with it, even after mika76 at Gameknot.com put forth a refutation.
Lt. G.N. Whistler may have invented Whistler's Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 Qe7) but Brian Wall and Tyrin Price much more recently showed how dangerous it was.
It is always great fun for me too play through games in my database and look for individualized interpretations, from viejoasquerosos's predeliction for playing Bc4 and Bxf7+ (or ...Bc5 and ...Bxf2+) at the earliest possible moment, in any opening,to equally inventive ideas like in the following game.
weenar - Quixote blitz, FICS, 2000
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Ng1
Wow... weenar decides that the essence of the Jerome Gambit is displacing the King, followed by a Queen check. In what has to be the most outrageous of the "modern" lines, this check is prepared without further sacrifice.
Other retrograde lines that I can think of offhand are 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Ng8 and 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.exf5 followed by Ng1. 5...Qf66.Qh5+ True to the main idea, although 6.Nf3 may have been stronger.
6...g6 7.Qg4 The Queen, mindful of such lines as 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Qh4+ 3.g3 Qe7, etc., should have retreated to e2.
7...Qxf2+ 8.Kd1 Qf1 checkmate Admittedly, that didn't go too well. It has been said that opening innovations will lose the first and last time they are played; the former because they are not quite understood, the latter because they are understood too well. In between the two? That's where the excitiement is.
4...Kxf7 5.Ng1 
