Jerome Gambit: Down the Rabbit Hole, Again (Part 1)

I admit that after assembling the latest blog post concerning some chess history (see "Jerome Gambit: History Reset") I tumbled down the rabbit hole, again, concerning A. G. Johnson's claim, in The Oregon Daily Journal of Portland, Oregon, for  October 25, 1914, that Wilhelm Steinitz, while world chess champion, had lost to the Jerome Gambit the first time he had faced it.

Such a claim is outrageous on its face - a master playing the Jerome Gambit successfully, or, even worse, an Amateur doing so against the great Steinitz - and it could hardly have been hidden from the chess world, nor would the victor of such a game have been able to keep from sharing it with every player he knew!

Contrast this, as one example, with the report on Emanuel Lasker's simultanous exhibition, as reported in the October 18, 1906 Pittsburgh Press, where he defeated E. H. Miller's Jerome Gambit. Apparently neither player was interested in sharing the game score; or, if either did, the chess columnist could not be bothered to publish it. Ho-hum...

Still, how hard could it be to do one more check?

I fired up my copy of ChessBase, peered into the Big Database, and Filtered Games, looking for "Steinitz" playing Black, an outcome of "1-0", ECO of C50, and a game Position featuring Black's King on e8 and White's Bishop on f7.

Nothing.

So, I removed the ECO requirement.

Four games appeared, two of which could immediately be discarded: Blackburne - Steinitz, match game, London, 1863, and Chigorin - Steinitz, World Championship match game, 1889  - known games, and, certainly, not Jerome Gambits (they were Evans Gambits). What remained was Deacon - Steinitz, match game, London, 1863, and Robey - Steinitz, London, 1865. 

This immediately provided me with another distraction.

Frederick Deacon is alleged to have published spurious game accounts of wins against Paul Morphy (who claimed never to have played him) and Steinitz. The 1863 Deacon - Steinitz match game from my database seems to be legitimate, and has certain "Jerome-like" qualities, so it might be worth a peek, with the caveat: we think of Jerome Gambits as primarily arising from the move order 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ and often continuing 4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+; the Bishop sacrifice and the Queen excursion are markers, although sometimes the label of "Jerome Gambit" has been mis-applied.

First, though, let us have a look at the thoughts of Wilhelm Steinitz, as he considers Mr. Deacon.

[to be continued]