Jerome Gambit: Excitable

I know that sometimes I can be a bit excitable about the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+).

For example, when this blog was only 4 months old (almost 14 years, or about 3,575 posts ago) I heard about the existance of a book All or Nothing! The Jerome Gambit, by Chaim Schmendrik and was ecstatic.

Of course, as I related in "rec.games.chess.misc & email" it was a joke. There was no such book.

Later, I admitted that "The Jerome Gambit is Going to Drive Me... (Parts 1 & 2)" after I tried to chase down a story about Alekhine losing to the Jerome Gambit... It was, again, "Much Ado About... Nothing".

Even later, I chronicled some of this searching in "Jerome Gambit: Worse vs Best (Parts 1, 2 & 3)". (Emanuel Lasker faced the Jerome? Wilhelm Steinitz lost to the Jerome?) After all, the good Dr. Michael Goeller had informed me that GM Larry Christiansen had played the Jerome - see "A GM plays the Jerome Gambit ??"

I mention all of this as prelude, for chessfriend Dan Middlemiss - a devoted Stafford Gambit aficionado and relentless provider of Jerome Gambit games that I had not yet seen - teased me with the following tidbit

BTW, during the Gibraltar Battle of the Sexes tournament, somebody in the chat (a highly suspect source!) mentioned that GM Pia Cramling has been know to dabble in the Jerome Gambit. I wonder whether your readers might be able to confirm this....

Wow.

Oh, no, here I go again... 

(I sent a message to WFM Anna Cramling, GM Cramling's daughter as well as a Twitch live streamer and YouTuber, asking if either one of them had experimented with the Jerome Gambit.)

Jerome Gambit: The Game Is Afoot, Again! (Part 1)

Lately, I have been thinking, as I did in the post "Jerome Gambit: Worse vs Best (Part 1)"

As a serious fan of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) I like to think about what would happen if the best chess players ever faced the opening - or, even more improbably, if the "best" ever played the "worst". 

What Jerome Gambit fan wouldn't want to track down stories suggesting that Alekhine once played the Jerome; or that Steinitz, and later, Lasker, actually faced the Jerome.

Those might be some fascinating games.  

I tried, without success, to discover them. See "Jerome Gambit: Excitable" for links to relevant posts. The claims of an Alekhine or a Steinitz Jerome Gambit game appear completely unsubstantiated; the Lasker game did happen, but I have not been able to find the moves of the game.

Of course, Blackburne once destroyed the Jerome Gambit. You can see that game many places, including on this blog, for example, in"Nobody Expects the Jerome Gambit!"

If you count transpositions - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qe2 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ being equal to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Qe2 Nf6 I guess you could settle for Adolf Albin. See "Adolf Albin Plays the Jerome Gambit (Part 1) and (Part 2)".

So, imagine how excited I got when my Google Alert - set to let me know when it ran across "Jerome Gambit" on the internet - pointed me to "Traps and Gambits" ("For 1000-1600 players that enjoy aggressive openings, sacrifices, and traps"), specifically "Giuoco Piano Game: Jerome Gambit" and I read the title "The Jerome Gambit: A Daring Dive into Chess Romanticism".

What really struck me was the following

This opening has been used in a number of famous games, including some by the legendary Paul Morphy, whose attacking prowess was unparalleled in his time.

Paul Morphy played the Jerome Gambit??

And with that, I could not help myself, I was off searching again on a fool's errand...

Jerome Gambit for Dummies (1)

Bobby Fischer used to play with the white pieces against the Najdorf Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6) - and win. Then he would take the black pieces in another game - and win with them. Some players - and some openings - are like that.

The Jerome Gambit is not. If you have the white pieces and play the Jerome against a knowledgeable and booked-up opponent, chances are that you are going to have a rough time of it – unless you're playing a "weaky" (Bobby's term) that you've given Jerome Gambit odds to. *

Playing 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, you are counting on the element of surprise, shock, and awe to level the playing field. Therefore, you need to be aware of every trick, trap, and pitfall (or "caltrop" as Tim McGrew used to say) available to you so that you take advantage of every chance that comes your way.

Hence this series, "The Jerome Gambit For Dummies". (No jokes, please. We know, we know...)

* Some thoughts on the art of odds-giving, from the age of the Jerome Gambit:

Chess At Odds of Pawn and Move compiled by Baxter-Ray (1891)
Considering the large number of works published for the purpose of teaching a knowledge of the game of Chess, it must appear strange to the ordinary student to find so little information available in regard to Openings at Odds. Odds-giving has never received the attention it deserves from the analysts of the game. Yet it is very popular, and is rapidly growing in practice ; indeed, it is absolutely necessary for every Club, and a very large number of private players, to regularly introduce odds into their games, with, at present, little or nothing to guide them as to the best means of commencing play.

A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess. Forming A Compendium of the Science of the Game by Samuel Boden (1851)
One may often hear persons declare that they think it cowardly to take odds, that they had rather be beaten on even terms ; or that the removing of a piece, in odds, must spoil the game. All this is sheer nonsense, and only bespeaks utter ignorance of Chess. A game played even, where one party should be rendering the odds of a piece in order to give the other a chance, will have no interest for the one, and little pleasure for the other. If the weaker player has no chance, of course the stronger player can have no sport.

The Australian Chess Annual Edited by H. B. Bignold (1896)
If the handicap given is a fair measure of the difference in skill of the respective players, the odds giver can only hope to neutralise his deficiency in material by superiority of development. Assuming he has the move, it immediately becomes a matter of the utmost importance to adopt a suitable opening. But what is a suitable opening ? The answer to this will vary with circumstances, and on the player's ability to gauge them will to a great extent depend his success as an odds-giver. It is very certain that every player has some particular style of opening, which is in consonance with his turn of thought, and in which he will appear to the best advantage. If you can form some idea of your adversary's penchant, and avoiding it, lead him on to less familiar ways, your chances are, perforce, improved. Assuming you are the better player, if it should seem to you that you have both the same cast of mind, it is a matter of very nice consideration whether it will pay you better to meet him on his own ground, which is also yours, or lead him on to ways strange to both of you, trusting to your greater skill to gain an advantage on the spur of the moment. In choosing a gambit it should be borne in mind that if the one adopted is familiar to the adversary, the game is almost hopelessly compromised, since the initial difference force is already increased without any positional recompense. The writer has a lively recollection of giving a 5th class player a Rook and Knight, himself being in the 1st class, and receiving 14 moves of book defence to the Allgaier he ventured on ! In this dilemma, though it may appear fanciful, perhaps your adversary may himself give you the least hint. If he is a careful, cautious man, square-jawed, deliberate of manner, apt to weigh his words — perhaps even attach too much weight to them — given to loading his pipe with the utmost deliberation, and lighting it as if it were a solemn function, is it too much to premise that he belongs to the class that loves to castle early and oppose a solid phalanx to the advancing foe ? Perchance an Allgaier, or a Kieseritzky, whereby his cherished scheme of castling is rendered impracticable, may utterly rout him ! If he is of the opposite temperament — nervous, painfully excitable, given to squirming with impatience should you appear unduly slow to move — a Giuoco, with its orderly development, may entice him from his entrenchments to be more easily dispatched. In general, of course, he will belong to neither extreme, and classifying him will be a work of some difficulty, but to one who cares to succeed, a knowledge of his rivals can never be without advantage, in chess or the sterner warfare that it dimly shadows forth.