A Snack

Some chess games, even Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) games, are a veritible banquet of strategy and tactics, sometimes leading to great satisfaction and sometimes leading to indigestion.

By comparison, the following game is a bit of a snack. Yet, it is still filling.

CarlosFonseca - gianbagia
blitz, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Na5

Instead of entering the paths of the Giuoco Piano with 3...Bc5 or the Two Knights Defense with 3...Nf6, Black decides to pick on White's light-squared Bishop.

White does well enough, now, with 4.Nxe5, but he chooses an exciting alternative.

4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Ke7 6.d4 Nf6

White has two pawns for his sacrificed piece, plus one of Black's Knights is offside, and Black's King is in danger and in the way of his pieces.

The game is about even, which means, at the club level in blitz play, that the second player has to be careful.

7.Nd3

Curiously, of the 50 games in The Database with the position given in the above diagram, only one has this very reasonable move.

White's reasoning is impeccible: with the enemy King and Queen lined up on the same diagonal, Bc1-g5+ would be a deadly skewer, if it were not for Black's protective Knight on f6, so why not try to drive the Knight away?

7...d5

What would be a useful move at another time and in another place merely furthers White's plan in the here-and-now.

8.e5 Ne4 9.f3

Black could have left his Knight at f6 and allowed it to be captured with 8...Qe8. Instead, he moved it to a place where it covered the dangerous checking square g5.

Unfortunately, as White's move shows, the Knight is just as vulnerable at e4.

Sadly, Black's best move now is to retreat the Knight to f6, give the piece up, and resign himself to being a pawn down with a still-unsafe King.

Instead, Black resigned

Yum!



(This is my 1,250th post to this blog. I have been posting daily since the first one. I do not know how much longer I will be able to post daily, but even if I "slow down" I will continue to post multiple times per week. - Rick)

Say, What??



ARUJ - AlanBes, FICS, 2011

With White ready to make his 42nd move in the above position, it looks like another successful Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) is about to come to an end with a well-earned "1-0".

The game did end, without further play, as a draw, however, as both players ran out of time.

Oh, well.

Sunday Tournament Update

It is clear now that AsceticKingK9 will take top honors in the current ChessWorld Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) Thematic Tournament.

The 15-player, double round robin contest, is over 80% complete, and AsceticKingK9 leads with 25 points out of 25 games (with three games left to complete).

Second place has been sewed up by mckenna 215, with 23.5 points out of 28 games. His 84% score is impressive, as well.

Third through fifth places are still undecided. Knight32 has completed his run, with 18.5 points out of 28 games. Braken has 18.5 points out of 27 games, so, with one final win, he could pass Knight32. However, Rikiki00 has 15.5 points out of 23 games, and could bypass both Knight32 and Braken with enough wins of his own.

Or is it??

Longtime blog Readers may know that I used to do a lot of writing for the now very, very quiet Chessville site: lots of short fiction, lots of book reviews. It was a great "neighborhood" to hang out in.

Often when a new book came out, especially if it covered an unorthodox chess opening or was a self-published effort, I got a review copy as fast as possible and shared my impressions with Readers.

I have been able to do only a few reviews here at jeromegambit.blogspot.com. (I plan to review Eric Jego's English-language book on the Blackmar Diemer Gambit as soon as it arrives!)

Imagine my excitement today when I was wandering through Amazon.com and discovered Chess Openings: New Theory, by James Alan Riechel. I was ready to send off for a review copy in an instant!

I mean, who would not be thrilled by

Ten -- count them: ten! -- chapters of brand-spanking new opening theory in the game of chess, including -- believe it or not! -- three brand-new openings in chess never seen before in the long history of the game! (That's hundreds of years, folks!) Also, major contributions -- and all brand-spanking new theory, by the way -- are made in the Benko Gambit, Queen's Gambit Accepted, Center-Counter, Danish Gambit, Scotch Opening, French Defense, and Bird Opening. Major, major, major -- three times over! -- contributions are made in the French Defense. Two difficult lines for Black are repaired, and I offer the world the French Gambit! Each chapter has a one-page introduction, and each chapter has at least one section of brand-spanking new opening theory!

Whoa...!

Of course, one eyebrow went up when I checked out the author's USCF rating (class B, like me) and read his Amazon bio

The author lives in Pasadena, California, and is employed as a math instructor at Mathnasium in South Pasadena, California. He hopes to complete a PhD in computer science at Caltech, with a dissertation in linear-time partial sorting algorithms, and algorithms for searching partially sorted data. On the weekends, he gets to visit his cat, Mr. T-Rex, a purebred Cornish Rex, at his family’s house in Glendale, California. In his spare time, the author works on research, and writes chess books!

The other eyebrow climbed a bit when I learned that the book has all of 30 pages. You do not need a PhD in computer science to figure out that that is, on the average, 3 pages per chapter, with one of those pages being, as advertised, an introduction.

Still, it's tempting, isn't it?

Or is it??

The Seventeenth Man

Eight pawns. Two Rooks. Two Knights. Two Bishops. A King and a Queen. We all start out a chess game with the same number of chessmen. However, as the following game by Dave Black shows, being familiar with and playing the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) can give the first player an edge in thinking time; and with the clock as White's "seventeenth man" that can tip the advantage in his favor.

mrddblack - gradivus
blitz, 1011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Kf8

Declining the second piece is a reasonable and time-honored defensive plan.

6.Qh5

The Banks Variation, after Pete Banks ("blackburne") of the Jerome Gambit Gemeinde. In this game Black decides to transition back to main lines.

6...Nxe5 7.Qxe5 d6 8.Qg3 Qf6

9.0-0 Ne7 10.c3 Qg6 11.Qf3+ Ke8 12.d4 Bb6 13.Nd2 Rf8 14.Qe2 Bd7

15.f4 Qg4 16.Qe3 Kd8 17.Nc4 h6 18.e5 d5 19.Nxb6 axb6 20.a3 Bb5

Black still has his extra piece, and, hence the advantage. White hopes to get his "Jerome pawns" running to balance things out.

21.Rf3 Nf5 22.Qf2 Kd7 23.Bd2 Rae8 24.h3 Qg6 25.g4 Ne7 26.f5 Qh7 27.e6+ Kc8 28.Bf4 Ng8

Black has stopped the progress of White's "Jerome pawns" at the cost of stifling his Queen and Knight. White decides to open a second front, which has the eventual result of lifting the semi-blockade.

29.a4 Ba6 30.b4 Bc4 31.a5 bxa5 32.Rxa5 b6 33.Ra3 Kb7 34.Qe1 Ra8 35.Rxa8 Rxa8 36.Qe5 Rc8 37.Rf2 Nf6 38.Qe1 Qh8 39.Qa1 Qe8 40.Be5 Ra8 41.Qb2 Qa4

42.Kg2 Qa1 43.Qxa1 Rxa1 44.Kg3

He might have tried 44.Bxf6 gxf6 first.

44...Bb5 45.h4 Ra3

Black needed to keep the pressure on with 45...Rg1+. This may have been the result of increasing time pressure.

46.Rf3 Ne4+

This looks forward-going, always attractive when time is short, but it turns the advantage over to White. Better: 46...Ra1

47.Kf4

Here, with White better (the "Jerome pawns" are about to become unbound), his "seventeenth man" checked in: Black lost on time

Funny?!

Having made a word play with Bill Wall's opponent in my last post (see "Blunder Blunders"), I still was not quite ready when I encountered the following game.





SickJoke - Hena
blitz, FICS, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+

4...Kxf7 White resigned

Harrumph! I thought. What White making fun of the Jerome Gambit, thinking it was some kind of "sick joke"?? The nerve!

Luckily, I decided to look up more of his games.

SickJoke - marcpawn
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Bd3 c5 4.dxc5 White resigned


SickJoke - msmarple
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.c4 White resigned


SickJoke - xake
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 c5 2.Bc4 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qc3 Bb4 White resigned


SickJoke - jermels
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d6 White forfeited on time


Funny openings. Funny games. Funny guy.

Blunder Blunders

When you have an opponent named "blunder", as Bill Wall does in the following Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) game, you can always hope that there might be some errors across the board that will help you out.

billwall - blunder2
Chess.com, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ng6

7.Qd5+ Ke8 8.Qxc5 d6 9.Qe3 Nf6

10.d4

Following in the footsteps of Charlick - Mann, correspondence, 1881 (1-0, 72).

10...b6 11.0-0 Bb7 12.f3 Kf7

13.Qb3+ Ke7 14.Qa3 Re8 15.e5 Nd7 16.Bg5+ Nf6 17.exf6+ gxf6

White has recovered his sacrificed piece and is a pawn to the good.

18.Re1+ Kf7 19.Qb3+ d5 20.Be3 Qd6 21.Nc3 Re7

22.Ne4 Qe6 23.Nc5 bxc5 24.Qxb7 Rae8 25.dxc5 c6 26.Qb4 Qf5

White is ahead a couple of pawns. If the players move to the endgame, the win is there, providing that the clock does not intervene. (Of course, familiarity with the Jerome Gambit often grants a time advantage.)

27.Qd2 Ne5 28.Bd4 Nc4 29.Rxe7+ Rxe7 30.Qd3 Qxd3 31.cxd3 Ne5 32.Bxe5 fxe5

33.Kf2 Rb7 34.b3 Rb5 35.Rc1 Ra5 36.a4 Ke6

37.Ke3 d4+ 38.Ke4 h6 39.f4 exf4 40.Kxf4 Kd5

41.b4 Rxa4 42.Re1 Rxb4 43.Re5 checkmate