Is the Jerome Gambit really that bad?

There is a brief discussion on the lichess.org website, wondering "Is the Jerome Gambit really that bad?"

Of course, the answer is both "yes" and "no". 

Readers are encouraged to add their opinions.

Who is the 1st inventor of JG in chess – A.Jerome or G.Tonetti? The new approach (Part 1)

 Who is the 1st inventor of JG in chess – A.Jerome or G.Tonetti?  

The new approach (Part 1)  

  

(by Yury V. Bukayev) 

 

 

The Jerome gambit (JG) isn’t only a standard system 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, it is also a large family of its deferred systems (my published articles ‘Lose never with a strong deferred Jerome gambit!’, Part 1 – September 2021, Part 2 – September 2022). The modern historical data indicate that the standard system was the earliest historical form of JG, we know the publication of A.Jerome’s analysis (Dubuque, USA, 1874), the publication of G.Tonetti’s “forgotten” game (Rome, Italy, 1863) with it. That is why the master G.Tonetti is considered by the history (we don’t say about rights etc.) as the 1st inventor of JG in chess, but I suggest to not hurry to agree with this conclusion. 

 

The first problem is in the word “inventor”. Firstly, only the intentional move 4.Bxf7+ can be an invention. Thus, we can’t exclude that after 3…Bc5 Mr. Tonetti has touched the pawn f7 (to set it in the centre of the square f7) without his comment, so Mr. Ruggieri (Mr. Tonetti’s opponent in this game) has started to require the move 4.Bxf7+ and has had all rights to do it. This enough probable version is similar to the first of my alternative versions in my article ‘Perez – Alekhine Game & WCC’s Main Mistake: The New View (Part 1)’ on Rick Kennedy’s blog. 

  

The second problem is in the word “chess”: there was an evolution of chess rules. All previous historical forms of chess – previous forms of chess rules – are ‘chess’ rules from the historical point of view only. Thus, we may say that only modern chess rules are ‘chess’ for today, for today other ones are ‘quasi-chess’ only. 

  

We can find the following words in the beginning of Wikipedia’s article ‘Castling’: “<…> local variations in castling rules were common, persisting in Italy until the late 19th century”. Further, the section ‘History’ of this article says: “In Rome, from the early 17th century until the late 19th century, the rook might be placed on any square up to and including the king’s square, and the king might be moved to any square on the other side of the rook. This was called free castling”.  

 

Further, the article from ICCF website ( https://amici.iccf.com/issues/issue_01/issue_01_the_italian_rules.html ) by Eric Ruch gives us the following information: “The Italian rules date back to the end of the 15th century – mid 16th century <...> They differ from the modern chess rules by the “passar battaglia” and the free castling. The “passar battaglia” forbids to take a pawn en passant. The free castling allowed a player to directly move his king to h1 and his rook to e1 for instance when castling kingside, or the king to a1/b1 and the rook to b1/c1/d1 when castling queenside. These rules were in use in Italy up to the end of the 19th century and it is generally considered that it was the Third National Chess Tournament held in Milano in September 1881 that definitively imposed the use of the international rules in Italy”. It maybe, the author describes the most popular variation of the Italian rules of that time. 

Moreover, the section ‘Italian castling’ of the article ‘Chess Variants and Rule Changes’ by Edward Winter ( https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/variants.html ) makes clear for us that the Italian rules were used sometimes even not in Italy by the great maestri: “Alessandro Nizzola (Mantova, Italy) writes: ‘I recently discovered an unknown game by Adolf Anderssen, a loss against Dubois. It was played according to the Italian rules of castling, at the home of Löwenthal <…>’ 

Adolf Anderssen – Serafino Dubois 
London, 1862 
Muzio Gambit 

1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 Bc4 g4 5 0-0 (Kh1, Rf1) gxf3 6 Qxf3 Bh6 7 d4 Qh4 8 Nc3 Ne7 9 Bd2 d6 10 Rae1 Nbc6 11 Nb5 Bg4 12 Qb3 0-0-0 (Kb8, Rc8) 13 Bc3 f5 14 e5 dxe5 15 d5 Nd4 16 Nxd4 exd4 17 Bxd4 Rhe8 18 Re6 f3 19 g3 Qh3 20 Rf2 f4 21 Ba6 b6 22 Rxb6+ cxb6 23 Bxb6 Nxd5 24 Bxa7+ Kc7 25 Qc4+ Kd6 and wins”.   

 

It is enough to understand the following. While the castling and all rules in 1874 in Dubuque were modern, the castling in tournaments of Rome in 1863 was free, the rules were not modern, so we see G. Tonetti’s ‘quasi-chess’ game. This Mr. Tonetti’s game contains his castling – “0-0”. Let’s assume that his King was moved to g1, that his Rook was moved to f1 - 12.0-0 (Kg1, Rf1), but we understand that these free castling squares were chosen by him that moment of the game. Each player chooses his move after thinking about his and opponent’s possibilities, and we can’t know, how strongly it has influenced a choice of each move by Black and by White between 4…Kxf7 and 12.0-0 (Kg1, Rf1).   

 

We can understand, for this period of Roman history Mr. Tonetti’s move 4.Bxf7+ was theoretically stronger than the same Mr. Jerome’s novelty for modern chess: free castling was theoretically the more strong weapon than the modern castling, so Black’s impossibility to do it as a result of 4…Kxf7 with White’s possibility to do it create this conclusion. 

 

We can see, we shouldn’t hurry to answer the difficult question. Dear admirers of Alonzo Jerome and of Giovanni Tonetti, I’m asking you very much to live further in peace, not in war! My dream is a human life in the international peace. 

 

 

Contact the author:  istinayubukayev@yandex.ru  

 

© 2022 Yury V. Bukayev (Copyright © Bukayev Yury Vyacheslavovich 2022). All rights reserved.  

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