A Bridge To... Somewhere?

Yesterday's game, Byrne [Bryne] - Farwell, San Francisco, 1859, serves as a curious bridge between two pieces of Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) history. On the one hand, as we have seen, the opening moves transpose to what later will become known as the Semi-Italian Jerome Gambit. On the other hand, it introduces to this blog a player, Willard B. Farwell, who has a couple of other games in the historical California chess database — one of which approaches the question of what games might have influenced Alonzo Wheeler Jerome in the creation of his gambit (see "A Distant Relative?").


Farwell,W - Jones,E
San Francisco, 1859


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 

This is the Scotch Gambit, but, hold on.


4...Bc5 5.Ng5 Nh6


And now, a relatively familiar set of moves...*


6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qxc5 

The game is about even, although White went on to lose in a miniature (9...d5 10.e5 Re8 11.f4 Nxe5 12.fxe5 Rxe5+ 13.Kd2 Qg5+ 14.Kd3 Re3+ 0-1).


I checked the position after White's 7th move in the ChessLab online database, and discovered a line of games with a whole host of familiar names, on both sides of the board, including:


Labourdonnais - Haxo, Gilvoisin, 1837 (1/2-1/2, 33)
Shumov - Jaenisch, St. Petersburg, 1850 (1-0, 20)
NN - Harrwitz, Paris, 1852 (0-1, 13)
Meek - Morphy, Alabama, 1855 (0-1, 21)
Montgomery - Allison, New York, 1857 (0-1, 59)
Kennicott - Morphy, New York, 1857 (0-1, 24)
Steinkuhler - Blackburne, Manchester, 1861 (0-1, 24)
Ranken - Staunton, London, 1866 (0-1, 24)


Could this be the trail of another "godfather" of the Jerome Gambit? I will be digging deeper...




*-Opening analysis of the time warned against 5...Ne5, because of 6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qxc5, going back at least as far as Sarratt - NN, 1818.. Familiar?