SNAFU

Here is my worst loss with the Jerome Gambit, ever. To someone rated more than 300 points below me. I was going to "overlook" it, but that did not seem quite honest.

As you might expect, there was something very strange about the game.


perrypawnpusher  - anandh
blitz, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bc5

The Italian Four Knights Game.

5.Bxf7+

The Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit.

5...Kxf7 6.Nxe5+ Nxe5 7.d4 

7...Bxd4 8.Qxd4 Nc6 9.Qd3 Ng4

10.Bf4

Anticipating ...Qh4, protecting h2, and allowing the possibility of 0-0-0 – but when I played the move, something didn't look right.

I realized that my clock had stopped, and so had my opponent's. I was using the BabasChess software to connect to FICS, and that kind of a thing had never happened before.

I watched nothing happen on the screen for a while, then, foolishly, to see what would happen, I tried to move one of my opponent's pieces (nothing) and then one of mine (nothing).

Of course, the software took my attempt to move one of my pieces as a pre-move, and when everything unfroze, BabasChess executed my move right after my opponent's. Therefore

10...Nge5 11.Bg3 Nxd3+ White resigned

Like I said, I was going to just "forget" about the game and leave it out of The Database, but when I played through the FICS games from August, 2011 – provided, again, by the indefatigueable Jerome Gambit Gemiende member Welton Vaz – I encountered the following pair of miniatures

bogsnes - exactement
blitz, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Kf8 7.Qf5+ Qf6 White resigned

White's 7th move was clearly a mouse-slip for the intended 7.Qxe5.

thehallmessenger - Gigabyterules
standard, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nd4 Bxd4 White resigned

White's 5th move was clearly a mouse-slip for the intended 5.Nxe5.

I decided that if I was going to include bogsnes' and thehallmessenger's slips, I should include mine as well.

A Slice of Jerome Gambit

My thanks to Welton Vaz, Jerome Gambit Gemeinde member from Brazil, for sending the Jerome Gambit (and related) games from FICS for June, 2011.

I looked at the games a bit closer, and made some interesting discoveries.

There was a total of 109 games with the move order 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ played at FICS in June.

White won 44 games, lost 63, and drew twice, scoring 41%, which is about what I have found when I have studied other collections of Jerome Gambit games. (The statistics tool from ChessBase indicated that the Whites had slightly underperformed, playing at about 30 rating points below their average.)

Interestingly enough, according to The Database, 2/3 of the players facing the Jerome Gambit at FICS in June had already defended against it at least one time before (low, once; high forty). The opening, it seems, is getting around, and is much less often a surprise than I would have thought.

When playing an opponent new to the Jerome Gambit (at least according to The Database) White scored 46%. That was a bit better than when playing an opponent with some experience with the Jerome, when White scored 39%.

Although some players offered "Jerome Gambit odds" to those rated less than themselves, this was not the standard in this game sample: White was the higher-rated player in only 40% of the games. More often, the Jerome Gambit was played against equals or higher-rated opponents.

Still, it must be noted that when giving "Jerome Gambit odds" White scored 55%.

Not surprisingly, in 64 of the games in the June pool, (59 %) the higher rated player won.

Or should that number have been higher? Was the Jerome Gambit introducing some chaos into the predictions? 

In any event, if Black was the higher-rated player in 60% of the games, and the higher-rated players won about 60% of their games, it should not be surprising that White won only about 40% of the games...