As the 2011 edition of the ChessWorld Jerome Gambit Thematic Tournament comes to a close, it seems fitting that the first full game looked at in any depth be one between the tournament's top-rated & top-finishing player, and the current top over-the-board Jerome Gambiteer.
The game quickly becomes as sharp and as theoretical as any modern opening line.
AsceticKingK9 - blackburne
ChessWorld, JG6 tournament, 2011
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Qxe5 d6
The Blackburne Defense, harking back to Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1885. See "Nobody Expects the Jerome Gambit!"
Not surprisingly, the modern "blackburne" has played this sacrificial line as well. See "blackburne as Blackburne with black".
8.Qxh8 Qh4 9.0-0
An alternative, but still complicated, line of play (see "Update: Blackburne Defense") is preferred by Houdini (who prefers White): 9.d4 Nf6 10.Nd2 Bxd4 11.0-0 Ng4 12.Nf3 Qxf2+ 13.Rxf2 Bxh8 14.Ne5+ Kg8 15.Nxg4 Bxg4 16.c3 Bg7 17.Be3 Re8 18.Re1 Rxe4 19.Rf4 Rxf4 20.Bxf4 Kf7 where Black has the two Bishops and a pawn for the exchange.
9...Nf6 10.Qd8 Bh3
Having sacrificed one Rook, Black now offers the other.
Not quite as strong is 10...Bb6 as with 11.e5 White frees his Queen: 11...dxe5 12.Qd3 e4 13.Qc3 Nd5 14.Qg3 Qf6 15.Nc3 Nxc3 16.dxc3 Be6 17.a4 Rc8 18.Re1 Bf5 19.a5 Bc5 20.Bg5 Qc6 21.Be3 Bd6 22.Bf4 Bxf4 23.Qxf4 h5 24.h3 Qf6 25.g4 hxg4 26.hxg4 Be6 27.Rxe4 g5 28.Qg3 Bd5 29.Re5 Be6 30.Rae1 Re8 31.Qd3 Kg7 32.Rxe6 Rxe6 33.Qd7+ Black resigned, Wall,B - Foo,N, Palm Bay, FL, 2010.
11.Qxc7+
Of course, 11.Qxa8? would have led quickly to mate after 11...Qg4.
Equally disastrous was the related 11.g3 Qxe4 12.Qxc7+ Kf8 White resigned, Siggus - toe, FICS, 2007.
11...Kf8
The proper retreat square, not 11...Kg8 12.Qxb7 Qg4 (12...Re8 13.d4 d5 14.gxh3 Qxh3 15.Qb3 Qg4+ 16.Qg3 Qxe4 17.dxc5 Black resigned, Hiarcs 8 - RevvedUp, blitz 2 12, 2006) 13.Qb3+ and White won, Chandler,G - Dimitrov,T, 5 minute special game, 2004.
12.Qxb7
The critical position.
White is ahead the exchange and four pawns, and threatens to grab a Rook – with check. Still, he should realize that he is on the defensive.
Black's pieces are very active, but the best he can do now is to force White to sue for peace with checks and repetitions.
12...Re8
Instead, 12...Qg4, threatening mate, seems essential.
White's only viable response is to grab the Rook, and then check like crazy, for example, 13.Qxa8+ Kf7 14.Qb7+ (14.e5 d5 and Black will mate) 14...Kf8 15.Qa8+ draws by repetition.
13.gxh3 Qxh3
Black probably figured that with mating threats like ...Nf6-g4 and drawing threats like ...Qh3-g4+-f3+ he would be okay.
White does not give him a chance, however.
14.e5 Rxe5 15.Qg2
Dumping cold water on the attack. When White gets his pieces developed, his extra Rook will tell.
15...Qf5 16.d3 Re2 17.Bh6+ Kf7 18.Nd2 Rxd2 19.Bxd2 Ke6 20.Qb7 Ng4 21.Rae1+ Kf6 22.Qe7 checkmate
It is so much easier in a scary movie: you know that you are moving into danger when the background music becomes ominous, perhaps the screeching of violins...
In a chess game, especially when playing a dubious opening like the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) it is important to be aware of dangerous themes.
Darthnik - spenjch
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bc5
Already we have some foreshadowing with 3...h6 4.d4 exd4 5.Bxf7+ Kxf7 6.e5 Qe8 7.Qd3 Nxe5 8.Qxd4 Nxf3+ 9.Kf1 Nxd4 White resigned, Benschatko - Lakritzl, FICS, 2006; and
3...Nf6 4.Nc3 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ Kxf7 6.Nxe5+ Nxe5 7.d4 Bxd4 8.Qxd4 d6 9.Bg5 h6 10.Bxf6 Qxf6 11.Nd5 Nf3+ White resigned, gjtlsdnr - silvalgo, FICS 2011.
4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Bxd4 7.Qxd4 Qf6
Even here, the danger begins to appear: 7...d6 8.f4 Qh4+ 9.g3 Nf3+ White resigned, Cradle - Foom, FICS, 2008 and Bevs - LordLucika, FICS, 2009.
8.f4 Qh4+
Or simply 8...Nf3+ White resigned, as in ainafets - Papaflesas, FICS, 2007 and stemplarv - KIAUA, FICS, 2007; or further 9.gxf3 Qxd4 White resigned, yorgos - Kompete, FICS, 2009.
9.g3 Nf3+ White resigned
Danger is everywhere, and we must learn to recognize it.
Elvis has left the building.
After rocketing to the top of the chart with a score of 25 points in 25 games in the Chess World Jerome Gambit Thematic Tournament, AsceticKingK9 has lost his first game – on time – to Haroldlee123. His remaining two games, against martind1991, are over the time limit as well, but have not yet been claimed.
Not that it matters. 25 points is enough to win the tournament. (Oddly enough, early on I predicted that the winner would score 24 points. AsceticKingK9 exceeded that number, but 24 would have been enough to put him ahead of the second place finisher. Lucky guess!?)
Second place has been wrapped up by mckenna215, with a score of 23.5 out of 28 games.
Third, fourth and fifth places remain a tangle. Knight32 has 18.5 points out of 28 games. Braken has the same score, with one game remaining. Rikiki00 has 15.5 points in 23 games.
It should be pointed out that Haroldlee123, currently in 10th place with 8 points out of 22 games, nonetheless now has upset wins over both AsceticKingK9 and mckenna215.
As they say, "A fool and his money are soon parted."
And so, as someone interested in unorthodox openings and supportive of independent book publishing (self-, print-on-demand, small press), despite previously-given well-founded concerns, I took the leap and bought James Alan Riechel's Chess Openings: New Theory.
The good news is, there is a lot of creativity in those 30 pages. Well, there actually are only 25 pages of Introductions and analysis, as the author starts numbering at the title page. And most of the 10 chapter Introductions are a half-page of print and a half-page of white space. Did I mention that there is adequate white space in the layout?
First off is the York Opening, 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nd5!? Riechel give no indication as to where the name comes from – player, location, literary allusion – and for a few pages I thought that he might have been recalling the English children's nursery rhyme, since White's advance Knight soon gets booted
Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.
But, no. There are chapters on the York Benko, the York-Sandnes MacCutcheon variation in the French Defense. Since the last chapter, on the American Opening, 1.Nc3 c5 2.Nd5!? contains the Riechel Variation, perhaps the nomenclature is person-based after all. (I have not checked my complete run of Randspringer, Myers Openings Bulletin, and Kaissiber magazines, so perhaps the truth is somewhere in there.)
A few general comments.
Using a very-accessible online games database, ChessLab, I tested the "newness" of all of the lines, including the named "theoretical novelties". The "Ts" were usually "N", but most of the openings generally had been trod before (although not by masters, and not necessarily the complete lines the author gives).
The "Danish Gambit" line, as the author calls it (others might think: Center Game), 1.e4 e5 2.d4 Nf6!? is given the name the Alekhine Variation ("Black attacks e4 in the style of Alekhine"). I think the move dates back to Greco.
Brashly, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 c5!? ("An unrecognized move in an old, well-established line") is given the name "The French Gambit" by the author. At least a few people (i.e. those who bought The Marshall Gambit in the French and Sicilian Defenses, by Kennedy and Sheffield) attribute the line to Frank Marshall.
As a reviewer, I find myself in a peculiar dilemma: if I quote as much analysis as I usually did in past reviews at Chessville, I will wind up quoting whole chapters of Chess Openings: New Theory. Where does "fair use" cross over into "copyright infringement"? (The whole book would have made a decent contribution to an issue of Gary Gifford's Unorthodox Opening Newsletter.)
Plus, it probably will not matter. If you are a great fan of junk openings, you will probably want the book, even if it mostly sits on your shelf after one reading. If you are not a fan, you probably have not gotten this far in the review, anyhow.
Is it a measure of my "unorthodoxy" that, all told, I am still wondering when the author's next book will come out??
An email from Bill Wall, whose Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) and related games are always entertaining and usually educational, to boot:
From your last blog, I looked at my games with anyone playing 3...Na5. I have had 5 players play it against me. I delayed Bxf7 one move.
Wall - Ali
Chess.com, 2010
notes by Bill
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Na5
4.Bd5 Nf6 5.Bxf7+ Kxf7 6.Nxe5+ Ke8
6...Kg8 looks safer.
7.0-0 Nxe4? 8.Re1
8.Qh5+ looks best.
8...Nc5??
8...Qh4.
9.Qh5+ g6 10.Nxg6+ Ne6 11.Nxh8+ Ke7 12.d4 Nc4 13.Bf4 Qe8 14.Qh4 checkmate
I freely admit that many of my Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) games are ones in which I give "Jerome Gambit odds", where I use a refuted opening to "level the playing field" against a lower-rated player. Against a higher-rated player, I do not need an esoteric opening to lose, I can do it all by myself, thank-you-very-much.
In the latest batch of games played at FICS, sent to me by Jerome Gambit Gemeinde member and chessfriend Welton Vaz, from Brazil, I discovered the player klanga, who has taken up the Jerome this year, and who plays it, apparently, against all comers. In the following game he takes on someone with a rating almost twice his own.
klanga (864) - TalesdeSousa (1720)
blitz, FICS, 2011
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.Bxf7+
The Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit. Certainly nothing to worry about, Black figures.
5...Kxf7 6.0-0 Ng4
Let us just get about checkmating this tyro...
7.d4 Bxd4
Perhaps at this slip, klanga chuckled. Why would such a higher-rated player bother wasting a strong move on me, so early in a busted opening?
8.Ng5+ Kg8 9.Qxg4
White has recovered his sacrificed piece. No matter: the stronger player can inflict structural damage on White's pawns, then open up the game and use his superior strategic skills to wrest the point away.
9...Bxc3 10.bxc3 d5 11.Qf3 dxe4
Take that, you misplaced Queen!
12.Qf7 checkmate
The Gemeinde salutes its newest member, klanga!
In the 1960s, the Frito-Lay company launched a commercial for its potato chips that featured the challenge "Betcha can't eat just one" because the product was so tasty.
After yesterday's post on this blog, "A Snack", I found the following short game to be irresistible, as well.
maranthiru - FaceOfDeath
standard, FICS, 2011
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Na5
Still a variation without a name.
4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Kf6
Wow. This move has all of the "calories" of yesterday's 5...Ke7 (the risk of having the King and Queen on the same diagonal, with White's Bc1-g5+ a looming possibility), but none of the "nutrients" (the ability to play ...Nf6 to prevent the White Bishop's skewer).
For the record, there are 42 games in The Database with this position. White scores 83%, which tells you something.
However, in only 5 of those games did White play the "best" move, 6.Qh5, and in those games White scored 80%. (Yes, another typical Jerome-ish outcome: the best move scores worse than the lesser alternatives.)
A cautionary tale: Pokal - Lissi, blitz, FICS, 2011 continued 6.Qh5 Qe7 7.Ng6 [7.Qf5#] Qxe4+ 8.Kf1 Qxg6 9.Qxa5 Qxc2 10.Nc3 Qd3+ 11.Kg1 b6 12.Nd5+ Kf7 13.Qc3 Qe4 14.Qb3 Qe1 checkmate.
6.d4 d6
This move looks as "reasonable" as yesterday's 7.d5, but it ends the game quickly.
Black had little better than the retreat 6...Ke7, when 7.Nc3 is good for White, for example 7...c6 (keeping the Knight off of d5, but stranding his own Knight) 8.b4 d6 (offering a trade of Knights, but White sees further) 9.bxa5 dxe5 10.Bg5+ Nf6 11.dxe5 and White wins back his sacrificed piece, remaining a pawn up with the better position.
7.Qf3+ Bf5 8.Qxf5+ Ke7 9.Qf7 checkmate
