Jerome Gambit: The Game Is Afoot, Again! (Part 1)

Lately, I have been thinking, as I did in the post "Jerome Gambit: Worse vs Best (Part 1)"

As a serious fan of the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) I like to think about what would happen if the best chess players ever faced the opening - or, even more improbably, if the "best" ever played the "worst". 

What Jerome Gambit fan wouldn't want to track down stories suggesting that Alekhine once played the Jerome; or that Steinitz, and later, Lasker, actually faced the Jerome.

Those might be some fascinating games.  

I tried, without success, to discover them. See "Jerome Gambit: Excitable" for links to relevant posts. The claims of an Alekhine or a Steinitz Jerome Gambit game appear completely unsubstantiated; the Lasker game did happen, but I have not been able to find the moves of the game.

Of course, Blackburne once destroyed the Jerome Gambit. You can see that game many places, including on this blog, for example, in"Nobody Expects the Jerome Gambit!"

If you count transpositions - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qe2 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ being equal to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Qe2 Nf6 I guess you could settle for Adolf Albin. See "Adolf Albin Plays the Jerome Gambit (Part 1) and (Part 2)".

So, imagine how excited I got when my Google Alert - set to let me know when it ran across "Jerome Gambit" on the internet - pointed me to "Traps and Gambits" ("For 1000-1600 players that enjoy aggressive openings, sacrifices, and traps"), specifically "Giuoco Piano Game: Jerome Gambit" and I read the title "The Jerome Gambit: A Daring Dive into Chess Romanticism".

What really struck me was the following

This opening has been used in a number of famous games, including some by the legendary Paul Morphy, whose attacking prowess was unparalleled in his time.

Paul Morphy played the Jerome Gambit??

And with that, I could not help myself, I was off searching again on a fool's errand...