In the following Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) game, Black adopts a strong counter to White's sacrificial attack, but fails to follow through accurately. Thus, the game ends as a miniature, but with the first player succeeding.
Wall, Bill - Saud
internet, 2025
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.d4 Qh4
This counter-attack goes back to the game Sorensen - X, Denmark, 1888 (1-0, 27).
White has to hold on, and hope that his opponent doesn't quite know what he is doing. (In 54 games with this position, Bill, as White, has scored 82%. Mind you, that's a bit off of his full results found in The Database: over 1,500 games, scoring 95%.)
7.O-O Bd6
Showing unfamiliarity, although he does save the Bishop. Main line play was 7...Qxe4.
8.dxe5 Bxe5
Again. The Bishop needed to retreat with 8...Be7 or 8...Bf8.
9.f4
Or 9.Qd5+ Kf6 10.f4 Bxf4 11.Bxf4 d6 12. Bg3+ Black resigned, Wall,B - Neilson,C, internet, 2016.
9...Bd6 10.e5 Bc5+ 11.Kh1 Qe7
12.Nc3 c6 13.Ne4 d5 Nxc5 Qxc5
Black has managed to keep a piece-for-pawn advantage, but those "Jerome pawns" are ready for action, while Black's extra piece is still at home.
15.f5 Ne7
Developing a piece, threatening to win his opponent's f-pawn - what could be wrong with this? It turns out that he should have physically prevented White's next move with 15...h5.
16.Qh5+ Kf8 17.e6
Black resigned
There is nothing but sorrow ahead for the defender, starting with 17...Ng6 (putting off checkmate for a while) 18.fxg6+ Ke8 19.gxh7+ Kd8 20.Qe5 Bxe6 (ditto) 21.Qxe6 Kc7 22.Rf7+ Kb6 23.Be3 on top of which there would now be a checkmate in 10.
As John Donne wrote,
...never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
