The Obsolete Jerome Gambit

The year 1903 saw the publication of The Complete Chess Guide by F.J. Lee and G.H.D. Gossip. It was a large book, with "four parts in one volume": Part I - Chess Player's Mentor, Part II - Modern Chess Brilliancies, Part III - Guide to the Openings, and Part IV - Games at odds.

In the Chess Player's Mentor portion the book the authors write

We have therefore eliminated obsolete openings and confined ourselves merely to a brief examination of a dozen of the leading debuts...; omitting those openings in which the defense is declared by the most competent theorists to be weak or inferior, as for example Philidor's and Petroff's Defenses to the Kings Knight's opening; the Sicilian; the Greco Counter Gambit; Center Counter Gambit; Fianchettoes, Blackwar [sic] and Jerome Gambit, etc."

One can argue, despite Lee and Gossip's claim, that all of those openings mentioned – except the Jerome Gambit of course – are hardly obsolete today.

The exacting reader of the time might have noticed that the analysis given in the Guide to the Openings section of The Complete Chess Guide is an exact reprint of Gossip's analysis from his 1891 The Chess Player'sVade Mecum – including coverage of the Jerome Gambit! (The analysis is also the same in the 1903, 1905, 1907 and 1910 versions of The Complete Chess Guide.)

The obsolete Jerome Gambit: even when it's not supposed to be there, it's there!