Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Played Jerome-ish Games!

In earlier posts we have looked at a couple of bullet games played by top Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave which featured the risky Jerome-ish gambit with Bxf7+.

Yury V. Bukayev has sent his three more Jerome-ish games. Have a pleasure to explore the style of the current World Blitz Chess Champion!

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime - Vallejo Pons, Francisco

World Rapid 2017  

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Na5 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Nxe5+ Ke7 8.d4 d6 9.Nd3 Kf7 10.OO Bb7 11.Nc3 Nf6 12.e5 dxe5 13.dxe5 Nd5 14.Ne4 Be7 15.Qh5+ Kg8 16.Ndc5 Bc6 17.Qg4 Bxc5 18.Qe6+ Kf8 19.Nxc5 Qe8 20.Qh3 Kg8 21.f4 h5 22.Nd3 Qg6 23.f5 Qg4 24.Qxg4 hxg4 25.b3 Rh5 26.Bd2 Nb7 27.Rf2 a5 28.a3 a4 29.c4 bxc4 30.bxc4 Nb6 31.f6 gxf6 32.exf6 Kf7 33.Re1 Re8 34.Rxe8 Bxe8 35.Re2 Nxc4 36.Bc3 Rf5 37.Re7+ Kf8 38.Rxc7 Nbd6 39.Bb4 Kg8 40.Rg7+ Kh8 41.Rxg4 Bf7 42.h3 Ne8 43.Bc3 Nxf6 44.Rf4 Rxf4 45.Nxf4 Nxa3 46.Bxf6+ Kh7 47.Kf2 Nc2 48.Ke2 a3 49.Kd2 Bb3 50.g3 a2 51.Kc1 Ba4 52.Nd5 a1=Q+ 53.Bxa1 Nxa1 54.Kb2 Nc2 55.Nb6 Nd4 56.Nxa4 Ne2 57.g4 Nf4 58.h4 Ng2 59.h5 Kh6 60.g5+ Kxg5 61.h6 Kxh6 ½-½

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime - Nakamura, Hikaru

9th London Classic 2017, London ENG

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.h4 h5 11.Bb3 Rc8 12.O-O-O Ne5 13.Bg5 Rc5 14.Kb1 Re8 15.g4 hxg4 16.f4 Nc4 17.Qd3 Na5 18.Bxf6 exf6 19.Bd5 Nc6 20.Nxc6 bxc6 21.Bxf7+ Kxf7 22.Qxd6 Rxc3 23.Qxd7+ Qxd7 24.Rxd7+ Ke6 25.Rxg7 Rf3 26.Rxg6 Rxf4 27.Rg1 Rxe4 28.R6xg4 Rxg4 29.Rxg4 f5 30.Ra4 Rg8 31.b3 Rg4 32.Rxa7 f4 33.Kc1 f3 34.Kd2 Rxh4 35.Ra8 Rh2+ 36.Kd3 Kf5 37.a4 Kg4 38.a5 Rh1 39.Rg8+ Kf4 40.Rf8+ Kg3 41.Rg8+ Kf4 42.Rf8+ Kg3 43.b4 f2 44.Kd4 f1=Q 45.Rxf1 Rxf1 46.Kc5 Rc1 47.Kxc6 ½–½

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime - Dudin, Gleb

World Blitz Championship 2021, Warsaw POL

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.c3 d6 8.d4 Bb6 9.Be3 O-O 10.Nbd2 Rb8 11.Re1 h6 12.h3 Re8 13.a4 exd4 14.cxd4 Nb4 15.a5 Ba7 16.d5 Bxe3 17.Rxe3 c5 18.dxc6 Nxc6 19.Rd3 Nb4 20.Rc3 Bb7 21.Bxf7+ Kxf7 22.Qb3+ Nbd5 23.Rd3 Qd7 24.exd5 Qf5 25.Nd4 Qxd5 26.Nxb5 Qxb3 27.Nxd6+ Ke6 28.Nxb3 Red8 29.Nc5+ Ke7 30.Re1+ 1-0

Jerome Gambit: QED

The following game shows why many play the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) - White can win quickly.

angelcamina - hovdav

1 0 bullet, lichess.org, 2022

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ 

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Ke8 

Black suspects that something is up. One extra piece is enough, thank you very much.

6.Qh5+ Ke7 

Here Black avoids 6...g6 7.Nxg6 hxg6 8.Qxh8 but encounters something worse.

7.Qf7+ Kd6 8.Nc4  checkmate

Last year angelcamina beat SammmDBest the same way.

Alonzo Wheeler Jerome: How Strong?

 

I recently was asked how strong a player Alonzo Wheeler Jerome, of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+), was.

Finding an answer is a challenge.

Jerome lived 1834 - 1902, well before rating systems such as those devised by Harkness and Elo.

The first official use of the term "grandmaster", for example, was in the 1907 Ostend tournament.

On the other hand, from much earlier on the term "master" was freely and casually applied to players who were impressive in one way or another.

Official recognition as "master" by a particular chess body - say, the German Chess Federation - came only in the last quarter of the 19th century and had criteria which would exclude Alonzo Jerome.

Although some statisticians have looked at historical chess players to estimate their strength, Alonzo Jerome is handicapped by not being a very significant figure (outside of this blog, that is). For example, Jeff Sonas' Chessmetrics work looks at 13,000 chess players, but does not include Jerome.

The Edo Historical Chess Rating System does not list Alonzo Jerome, either.

Closer to home, the Database includes 27 games played by Alonzo Jerome, drawn from newspaper and magazine accounts of play. Of those, only 9 appear to be over-the-board encounters: 4 wins, 3 losses, 2 draws. 

Jerome scored 2 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw against Professor Orestes Augustus Brownson, whose life is documented in three volumes (1, 2 & 3) - none of which cover Brownson's chess. We are left with the Dubuque Daily Herald's 1892 bright but breezy reflection upon Brownson

His keen mental faculties found particularly agreeable employment at times in the intricacies of chess at which king's pastime he had few superiors in the country. 

Jerome had 1 loss and 1 draw against William A. Shinkman, the "Wizard of Grand Rapids".

In assessing Alonzo Jerome, we are left with a comment by J. W. Miller, the chess editor of the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph chess column (previously of the Cincinatti Commercial Gazette; also with William Cook, Synopsis of Chess Openings, A Tabular Analysis,With American Inventions in The Chess Opening and Fresh Analysis Since 1882) 

In Cincinnati we met a number of players in the Mercantile  Library… We also had the pleasure of contesting several games with Mr. Jerome, of Paxton, Ill. He is well known as the author of the so-called Jerome Gambit, in which white sacrifices the Bishop by taking KBP on the fourth move of the Giuoco Piano game. Neither the gambit nor its author proved strong in the contest.

If the Edo rating given for J. W. Miller, 1956, is accurate, then Alonzo Wheeler Jerome probably was of average club player strength for his time period - the kind of guy, after all, who would play the Jerome Gambit.

Jerome Gambit: Do Grandmasters Actually Think?

Scientists who study thinking sometimes use chess (and chess players) as a model of thought, to further their understanding of the subject.

I recently read a technical paper highlighting a number of points of disagreement including Do Grandmasters actually think during 1-minute games, or is it something else?

That got me wandering back to "My Chess Psychology Bookshelf" (as well as The Database) in search of an answer to one of my own questions How much do Grandmaster games help in the understanding of the Jerome Gambit?

The challenge, of course, is that there are few* serious GM games featuring the Jerome - most of them are played online at blitz time control for fun and entertainment.

So, you can probably trust grandmaster tactics in the middlegame, or grandmaster strategy in the endgame, but relying on their opening understanding might very well depend upon their experience with the Jerome Gambit, or if they have chosen the opening on a lark. 

Arisaaa - Kittinaa

3 0 blitz, lichess.org, 2021

It is interesting to note that both players are rated 2500+ on their playing site.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6  3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+

Consulting The Database, I see that Arisaaa has 34 games, scoring 79%.

This is the only game by Kittina in The Database. 

4... Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 

7.f4 d6  

This is the "silicon" or "annoying" defense, so called because it is the choice of a number of computer programs - and because it is annoying. Black calmly returns a piece (he has two extra) and argues that his King is relatively safe at e6.

The Database has 374 games with this position, and Black scores 54%. Data drawn from The Database points out that the average rating of the defenders is 1885, while their performance is 2003 - is this due, at least in part, to the defensive line of play?

8.fxe5 dxe5 9.Qh3+ Kd6 10.Qd3+ Ke7 11.Qg3 

This is standard play against the defense, the White Queen shuttling to squares where it can deliver check or threaten a pawn.

The struggle here was one of the reasons that long time Jerome Gambiteer MrJoker wandered away from the opening for a while - see "Jerome Gambit: Time For A Sobering Cup of Coffee".

11...Kd6 

With the choice of surrendering either the g-pawn or the e-pawn, Black chooses the former. This is a blitz game, so the decision has to be made relatively quickly.

It would require familiarity with the Jerome Gambit in general, and this defense, in particular, to realize that one of the top move choices here is 11...Ke8, abandoning both pawns.

Still, Kittinaa is in good company. Two games from the legendary 1993 Fisher-Kirshner - Knight Stalker match reached this position, with White scoring 1 - 1; two games from the 2006 slugfest computers vs human match, featuring Crafty 19.19 and Hiarcs 8, saw a couple of draws; and Bill Wall played with and against a few computer programs - AnMon, Comet B50, and Komodo 5 / Rybka, with White scoring 2 - 1.

12.b4 

According to The Database this Evans Gambit style pawn sacrifice is a new idea here. According to Stockfish 15 it is the best move in the position.

Hats off to Arisaaa.

12...Bxb4 13.c3 Bc5 14.d4 Qe7

The Queen tries to hold things together. 

The computer suggests that either 14...b6 15.dxc5+ Kc6 or 14...Kc6 directly were better choices. Still, this is a blitz game and here nobody dies by nuance.

15.dxc5+ Kc6 16.Nd2 Nf6 17.Nc4 Nxe4

I know there is this unofficial bit of advice for blitz play, that when in doubt, grab material, but here that suggestion fails. Rather, Black should think about castling-by-hand with 17...b6 or 17...b5 and 18...Kb7.

18.Nxe5+ Kd5

This leads to checkmate, but the alternatives are not much more attractive: 18...Qxe5 19.Qxe5 and 18...Kxc5 19.Ba3+ each give up the Queen.

19.c4+ Kxc5 20.Ba3+ Kb6 21.Qb3+ Ka6 22.Qb5 checkmate

Nicely done.

* I am tempted to say "no", rather than "few", but some higher-rated players might argue that they compete seriously online with the Jerome Gambit, risking rating points and hoping to place high in a tournament or help their teams.

From a Multi-step Synthesis Concept in Theoretical Chemistry to the New Record-holder of Logical Reconstructions in Chess? (Part 1)

  

 From a Multi-step Synthesis Concept in Theoretical Chemistry to  

the New Record-holder of Logical Reconstructions in Chess? (Part 1)   

  

(by Yury V. Bukayev) 

 

 

Being a chemist-scientist and a chemist-engineer, I’ll compare a synthesis in theoretical organic chemistry with chess, but, of course, I’ll start to consider chess here at first. 

 

Probably, almost each reader of Rick Kennedy’s blog has already found (among web videos on the Jerome gambit) and watched the Twitch-clip ‘Alessia tries Jerome gambit’ by the National Women’s and Girls’ Champion Woman FIDE Master Alessia Santeramo (Italy) with her demonstration of the final of her web game (as White) on Chess.com. Each reader remembers her showman rapturous yell and probably a natural happiness on her face near the end of this demonstration. But the majority of us takes an interest in chess positions, not in bright emotions on computer screens.  

 

Dear Rick Kennedy has said me recently that it will be very nice to see the whole game. Unfortunately, I have not yet found it: probably it isn’t available to an ordinary user of the Internet. Is it possible to make a logical reconstruction of the game if you have only the position of its non-theoretical and extraordinary middlegame, without knowledge of its length? You’ll say “no, of course” probably, but I have tried to make it. Here it is.   

 

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ (It is according to the name of the clip. All further moves up to the 18th Black’s move are my logical reconstructions. If two or more ways are possible, then I try to choose the most probable way.) 4…Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.0-0 (I have the following version of why it has happened. I suspect, Ms. Santeramo has tried here to make the ordinary move 6.Qh5+!, but her computer mouse has accidentally pushed the King on e1 instead of the Queen on d1. In this situation her move 6.0-0? was the best of possible King’s moves.) 6…Bf8 (Of course, it isn’t the best retreat, but it keeps a winning advantage for Black. WFM Alessia Santeramo sees it. But she remembers that her opponent isn’t a chess master probably, that it is a blitz (?) game with the Jerome gambit, so she understands: she should try to attack her opponent for mistakes.) 7.Qh5+ (I think, 7.f4! AN is the best move here. Of course, after 7…Ng6? 8.f5! White gets the attack. After 7…Nc6! we should compare this interesting position with the known position of my research ‘JG: The New in Its Opening Theory, in Its Psychology (Part 11)’ with 11…Bf8. Thus, in that known position White’s “pawn tank” is very strong. Alternatively, in this our position it isn’t so very strong, so Black has much more time for a winning counter-attack. But Ms. Santeramo’s opponent could make here mistakes, so she had enough practical chance in this possible fight.) 7…Ng6 8.d3 Nf6 9.Qa5 d6 10.d4 Nxe4 (It’s Black’s first large mistake.) 11.Qd5+ Ke8 12.Qxe4+ Qe7 13.Qf3 Qf6 14.Qe4+ Ne7 15.Qd3 Nc6 16.Qe2+ Qe7 17.Qc4 Be6 (It’s another one.) 18.Qb5 Rb8 (It is the earliest move of the game, without indication of its number, which can be found on Ms. Santeramo’s clip. This move is again a mistake. Here I stop to make my brief comments: Alessia Santeramo starts to show and comment here. I’ll comment later.) 19.d5 Kd8 20.dxc6 Kc8 21.Bg5 Qf7 22.Nc3 Bc4 23.Qb4 Bxf1 24.Qg4+, and Black resigned. 

 

It maybe, this very long reconstruction is a new record-holder of logical reconstructions in chess history. I hope, WFM Alessia Santeramo, or her opponent nicknamed ‘ChessToG0’ (Black) from Germany, or somebody else will be able to help us to see the protocol of the whole original game in the future, when it is possible. Dear players, thank you for the game! 

 

[to be continued…] 

 

Contact the author:  istinayubukayev@yandex.ru  

 

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

[A legal using of this investigation with a reference to it is permitted  

and doesn’t require author’s consent.]