Thursday, December 27, 2018

The Jerome Gambit Article: Followup

Readers who have kept up with the 8 posts of my "Jerome Gambit Article" probably now know more about the opening than almost anyone else in the world!

Of course, those who checked out the "Afterword" for the list of names of people I thanked, personally, for their help saw only about 100 mentions - by now, the list would be twice as long. Many additional thanks to those who have shared games and analysis!

Finally, I have to touch on the most in/famous of Jerome Gambit games, Amateur - Blackburne, London, 1884, and recall, from an earlier blog post 
...the uncertainties mentioned by Brazilian chess master Hindemburg Melão, Jr. in his article for the online chess site, SuperAjedrez,
...Some sources indicate year of the game as 1868, others indicate 1888, and others indicate 1880. Some sources affirm that it was played in Manchester, others in London. Normally the name of the adversary is not given, having only "NN" or "Amateur", but in at least one source "Millner" is indicated as the name. Also it is not known if it was an individual game or part of a simultaneous display... [T]he game deserves to be cited as one of most beautiful pearls of blindfold Chess...

In the years since my Jerome Gambit article was written - 5 years after Melão's - Blackburne expert Tim Harding has clarified the location and year
That was "Mr M" v Blackburne, first published in the Illustrated London News on 10 May,1884 

Still, who is the amateur named "Millner"? Was the game part of a simultaneous exhibition? Was the game really played "blindfold"? (Blackburne did not mention either of the last two in his notes to the game in Mr. Blackburne's Games at Chess - I would think he would.)

What to do? Something I couldn't do when Melão first wrote - I posted on his Facebook page, (with the help of Google translation).
15 years ago you wrote an article for SuperAjedrez.com about a Jerome Gambit game by Blackburne. You named "Millner" as his opponent and said it was a "blindfold" game. Do you remember your source? Thank you, very much!
Very quickly I received a response.
Probably the source was " Ajadrez a la ciega " (by Benito Lopes Esnaola) or " Manuel de chess " (by Idel Becker), in both of which is the match. I don't remember the name of the black player, but I found 2 Milner (with 1 L) from that time: 
http://www.edochess.ca/players/p1627.html 
 http://www.edochess.ca/players/p4055.html
I hope I helped.

Very interesting. Of course, I immediately put in a request, through InterLibrary Loan, for the two books Melão mentioned. They were written many years after the Illustrated London News article, but you never know what research will turn up.

I also checked out the links to the Edo Historical Chess Ratings.

The first, John Joseph Milner [note the single "l"], does not have a lot of information, but, given that one reference is given as  Bignold's Australian Chess Annual, and that the one tournament mentioned is the 6th New Zealand championship at Christchurch in 1893 - unless he is a very well-travelled chess player, he may not have been Blackburne's victim. A search with Google Books provided me with a copy of Volume 1 of the Australian Chess Annual of 1896, and there J.J. Milner is listed as Treasurer of the Canterbury Chess Club, in Christchurch.

The second, J. Milner [again, the single "l"], has even less information, but mentions a drawn game with A.C. Haines, played in the 1899 Lancashire - Yorkshire County Match, at Huddersfield. That's about a couple hundred miles away from Simpson's Divan, in London, much less of a travel for a dedicated pawnpusher. As for the reference given, Forster's book on Amos Burn, I have requested that from ILL as well.

So - more puzzles, more clues. Many thanks to master Hindemburg Melão, Jr., and I will share what more I discover.      


No comments:

Post a Comment