Saturday, July 13, 2024

Revisit: Alonzo Wheeler Jerome: How Strong?



A number of years back I asked the question "Alonzo Wheeler Jerome: How Strong?"

There was not a lot of information available, and Jerome did not appear on the players list at the "EDO Historical Chess Ratings" website.

My conclusion was that

...Alonzo Wheeler Jerome probably was of average club player strength for his time period - the kind of guy, after all, who would play the Jerome Gambit.

I recently ran across a short note in the Columbia Chess Chronicle, Volume 5, 1880

Prof. M. L. Deyo has made a score at Albany of 14 to 1 in a match with Mr. Jerome, of Gambit fame.

Ouch!

A little research put me in touch with the Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (originally Queens College) in New Brunswick, N. J. (1766 to 1916) which indicated that Deyo had received an honorary degree from the college in 1874, and further added

Martin Lewis Deyo

Born at Ghent, N. Y. Dec. 28, 1845 State Normal School

Brockport, N. Y. 1870  LLB (Albany Law School, 1877)

Prof. Mathematics, Albany Academy, 1870-98

Further, another check at the EDO Historical Chess Ratings, this time for Martin Deyo, showed that his rating in 1886 was estimated to be 2050, improving to 2081 in 1895.

If Deyo's playing strength when he met Jerome in 1880 was similar to that of a half dozen years later, Jerome was likely playing like someone rated 1620 or so.

In other words, club player strength.

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