Proto-Jerome Gambits? (Part 5)

As a last look at the possible influences on Alonzo Wheeler Jerome, in his creation of 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+, we take a look at the line 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Bc4 Nf6 (instead of 3...Bc5) which transposes, after 4.Nf3, to the Urusov Gambit, which is deeply covered at Michael Goeller's wonderful site.

While the 1857 analysis of the gambit by Prince Sergei Urusov may not have been available to AWJ, games like Kolisch - Paulsen, London, 1861, might have been.

It is hard to get very Jerome-ish here, after 4...Bc5, but Goeller does mention the modern game Hopf - Schintgen, Bratislava 1993, which continued 5.e5 Ng4 6.Bxf7+ (1-0, 34).

(Of course, if, instead, Black plays 4...Nc6, then after 5.0-0 Bc5 6.e5 Ng4 ["playable but rarely seen" according to coverage at Chessville.com] then 7.Bxf7+ would come in a Max Lange Variation of the Two Knights Defense, which is a whole 'nother thing...)

Dii minorum gentium

Chessfriend Anders Thulin, some good time back, mentioned that page 155 of The Chess Monthly, Volume 8 (1886-1887) contained "a long diatribe against the naming of Gambits and Openings, which ends..."

...The new mania among Chess-players to affix their names to some sub-sub-sub variation makes it anyhow a small honor indeed to be an inventor of an Opening, and when Labourdonnais, Anderssen, Morphy, Kolisch, Blackburne, and other good names are among the not decorated, we at least would prefer to belong to the same section and not aspire to those honours which seem to be the pride of the Dii minorum gentium [of the inferior orders]. No offense to anybody, but it is difficult enough already to know what is meant when every new year is marked with new Gambits, like Jerome, Blackmar, Pierce, Rosentreter, Qaade, &c...