Sometimes I get so caught up in the Jerome Gambit and this blog that I forget that the large majority of chess players is unfamiliar with Alonzo Wheeler Jerome and 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+.
It is tempting to exaggerate my efforts (over 3,200 blog posts) and yield to temptation, as a couple of chess friends have suggested, and re-name the opening the "Jerome-Kennedy Gambit" - but that would be over-stepping some boundaries. Jerome deserves his Gambit.
As it is, there is plenty of confusion as to what the Jerome Gambit actually is. (I am not going to pick on Joseph Henry Blackburne today.)
I have found other openings labeled the "Jerome Gambit" - for example, the Salvio Gambit, which is a variation of the King's Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.Ne5 Qh4+ 6.Kf1
Of course, there is also the Muzio Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0 (5.Bxf7+ is the Wild Muzio or Lolli Gambit) gxf3 6.Qxf3 Qf6 7. e5 Qxe5 when 8.Bxf7+ is considered the Double Muzio Gambit.
All of which can lead to confusion (as can the passage of time). Recently I read a couple of newpaper chess columns that did their best to bury or cloud the Jerome Gambit.
From the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, April 25, 1950, in a story about a "New York Doctor's Chess Library Contains Rare Old Books", T. M. Cherington, the paper's Chess Editor, wrote
Next to the Alaine C. White collection willed to the Cleveland Public Library, the largest chess library in America is Dr. A. Buschke's at 80 East Eleventh St., New York City.
His library contains thousands of chess books in most languages and he is constantly buying new works...
Dr. Buschke has Kieseritzky's Cinquante parties jouees du Cercle des Echecs et au Cafe de la Regence, published in Paris in 1846. Kiesertizky developed the Jerome Gambit sacrifice of Bishop and Knight for Rook and Pawn which goes by many names like Cunningham Gambit and Rice Gambit...
This might come across as somewhat confusing, as the openings mentioned, except the Jerome, are all variations of the King's Gambit
The Kiesertizky Gambit goes 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5.
The Cunningham Gambit refers to 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7
The Rice Gambit is 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 Nf6 6.Bc4 d5 7.exd5 Bd6 8.0-0
A few years later, in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of September 18, 1954, T. M. Cherington was at it again in his "The World of Chess" column
The Jerome Gambit and its many variants, such as the Muzio, the double Muzio, the mad Muzio, the Cunningham, the Kieseritzky and the Rice, so often proved unsound are showing themselves again in serious tournaments.This darling of 100 years ago has as its essence the sacrifice by the white side of Bishop and Knight for Black's Castled Rook and protected pawn. We can find no other reason for the resurgence of the Jerome than the search for novelty.
Hardly "the darling of 100 years ago", the Jerome Gambit made its debut in the pages of the Dubuque Chess Journal in 1874.
The reference to the sacrifice of "Bishop and Knight for Black's Castled Rook and protected pawn" is an especially egregious error, as the whole idea of the Jerome Gambit is to prevent Black from castling in the first place, with 4.Bxf7+
