Sometimes the recipient of a gambit is skeptical. Free material? Why not grab all I can get?? The gamiteer adds: It will cost you. In the following game Black happily receives a Bishop and then a pawn. When offered a Knight, he scarcely resists the temptation. White then shows that his "generosity" should have been taken seriously, as well. Philidor 1792 - NN 2015 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3
Putting Black's Queen on f6, with the idea of exchanging Her Majesty, is a common anti-Jerome Gambit strategy. In the following game, Black introduces the plan, then wavers - and the game ends quickly.
Another example of the Abrahams Jerome Gambit. As far as I can tell, Alonzo Wheeler Jerome did not play the Bishop sacrifice out of the Bishop's Opening, but Gerald Abrahams attributed the gambit to him nonetheless. 4...Kxf7 4.Qh5+ Ke6 5.Qf5+ Houdini judges the Abrahams Jerome less harshly than it does the Jerome proper, suggesting that here 5.Nf3, instead, equalizes. This bears further examination, as this blog has in the past presented only two losses by White with 5.Nf3 - see "The Abrahams Jerome Gambit (Part II)". 5...Kd6 6.Nf3 Qf6 7.d4 Bxd4
Chessfriend Philidor 1792 has sent another collection of Jerome Gambit, reversed Jerome Gambit, and Jerome Gambit-inspired games. The game below is an interesting mix of opening systems. White combines the "Abrahams Jerome Gambit" - 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ - with the "Scholar's Mate" - 1.e4 e5. 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qxf7+ - and plays it all in a 3-minute game. Black holds on for a while, but, in the end, either nerves or shortage of time lead to his downfall.
Blitz games are often about development and King safety. If White loses this game, it won't be because of the extra pawn he invested. 14...Ndc6 15.Nb5 Na6 16.Rxd5 Be6 17.Rd6 Ke7 18.Nf3 Rad8 19.Ng5 Rxd6 20.exd6+ Kd7 21.a3 Rf8 22.Ne4 Bc4 23.Nbc3 Nab8 24.Rd1 Na6
White's advanced "Jerome pawn" is not enough compensation for the sacrificed piece, but his knowledge of this kind of play, and advantage on the clock may well be. 25.b4 b5 26.f3 Ne5 27.Rd4 Nd3+ 28.Kd2 Nb2 29.Nf2 Rf6 30.Nce4 Rg6 31.Ng4 Re6 32.f4 Kd8 33.Ne5 Rh6
White's pieces have come together, while Black's are scattered. 34.d7 Be6 35.Nc6+ Kc7 36.d8Q+ Kxc6 37.Rd6+ Kb7 38.Rxa6 Kxa6 39.Nc5 checkmate
Golly, I was minding my own business, calmly defending against an Evans Gambit (I like the Lasker Defense) in the new Italian Game tournament at Chess.com, when suddenly I was Jeromed!
majimba - perrypawnpusher Chess.com Italian Game tournament, 2015 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4
The Evans Gambit.
4...Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.0-0 d6 7.d4 Bb6
8.dxe5 dxe5 9.Bxf7+
Kapow! A Delayed Evans Jerome Gambit!
Where did my opponent get the idea? If I had to guess, I would say it could have been from an old post at Chess.com by someone called skiingisfun69 (I have edited lightly for clarity):
...Only played in one grandmaster game that I could find. Is this a mistake? If so, how? It appears that no matter what Black does, his position is completely losing... I just played this on Yahoo chess against a friend, 7 minute / 7 second increments...I was very surprised to find out we had played grandmaster chess up until move 8. I had no idea there was such a thing as the Evans Gambit - I assumed my pawn sacrifice on b4 was no longer a standard line. On move 9 in my game I played Bxf7+. Is this move a mistake? According to the Chess.com database, it was only played in one game. Grandmasters usually choose 9.Qb3 or 9.Qxd8. How are these moves better than 9.Bxf7+? I only found one game where 9.Bxf7+ was played http://www.chess.com/games/view.html?id=144868. White won quickly. It appears to me that no matter what Black does, his position is clearly losing. If he doesn't take the bishop his position is losing. When I then offer the knight, if it he takes it he's simply down a queen for two minor pieces - losing. If he doesn't take it, he just loses. What a discovery! Who wouldn't want to try out 9.Bxf7+?
9...Kxf7 10.Nxe5+ Ke8!
Not according to White's plan. Painful for Black is 10...Ke6: 11.Qg4+ Kxe5 12.Bf4+ (12.Qf4+ Ke6 13.Qf5+ Ke7 14.Ba3+ Nb4 15.Bxb4+ c5 16.Bxc5+ Bxc5 17.Qxc5+ Kf7 18.Na3 Nf6 19.Nb5 Qe7 20.Nd6+ Kg6 21.e5 Rd8 22.Qe3 Ng8 23.Qd3+ Kh6 24.Nf7+ Qxf7 25.Qxd8 Qe6 26.Qh4+ Kg6 27.f4 Qb6+ 28.Kh1 h6 29.f5+ Kh7 30.Qe7 Black resigned, Wilson,P - Wilson,J, correspondence, 1921) 12...Kxe4 13.Re1+ Kd3 (13...Kd5 14.Qd1+ Nd4 15.Re5+ Kc4 16.Na3+ Black resigned, Ford,E - Vorrath,A, Manhattan Chess Club Handicap Tournament, New York, 1891) 14.Qe2 checkmate, skiingisfun69 - NN, 7 7 blitz, Yahoo Chess, 2008;
You might have noticed in the paragraph above that one of the games was played by Jerome Gambit Gemeinde member Philidor 1792. That is one reason to why majimba's Bishop sac wasn't a surprise to me. Longtime Readers may remember that there were 4 posts to this blog on the "Delayed Evans Jerome Gambit" in October and November of 2013. That is another reason I was not fooled. 12...Nf6 13.Bg5
Overlooking my reply. A stronger alternative, still giving Black the advantage, is 13.Qh6: 13...Rg8 14.Nh4 (14.Nf4 Ne5 15.Nd5 Rg6 16.Nxf6+ Qxf6 17.Qxh7 Bg4 18.Be3 Rd8 19.Nd2 Rd7 White resigned, Kurpnieks,V - Kovacs,A, LSS email, 2008) 14...Ne5 15.g3 Neg4 16.Qf4 Nh5 17.Qf3 Qxh4 White resigned, Kopel - Grocescu, correspondence, 1989.
13...Nxh5 14.Bxd8 Rg8
Black will remain two pieces up. 15.Nh4 Kxd8 16.Nd2 Be6 17.Rfd1 Ke7 18.a3 Rad8 19.Nhf3 Nf4 20.g3 Nh3+ White resigned
(My apologies to the Gemeinde, but a true Jerome Gambit player must know how to play against the gambit, too.)
The following game shows Philidor 1792 giving the "Jerome treatment" to the Berlin Defense of the Bishop Opening... The final position is worth bringing in a not-exactly-Jerome-Gambit line.
I have a Google "alert" set for "Jerome Gambit". It rarely returns anything, and when it does, it mostly gives me a link to one of the posts on this blog - not always a current one. The other day, however, it linked me to the following game at lichess.org. The game is given there as an example of "Bishop's Opening, Jerome Gambit," which is a bit of a misnomer, in that Alonzo Wheeler Jerome did not play or analyze the line (as far as I have been able to discover in 13 years of research into the Jerome Gambit). I have called the line the "Abrahams Jerome Gambit" (see Part 1 and Part 2 among several references), after the British chess player and author Gerald Abrahams (1907 - 1980) who referred to it as the Jerome Gambit in at least two of his books. In the following game, White is not able to develop an attack worthy of the piece sacrificed, and eventually loses on time in an undermanned endgame. vitula - Pigmalion 5 0 blitz, lichess.org, 2014 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7
"Bishop's Opening, Jerome Gambit" according to the site. 4.Qh5+ Kf8 5.Nc3