3786. Blackburne Shilling Gambit
From Rick Kennedy (Columbus, OH, USA):
‘The opening 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nd4 has been called the Blackburne Shilling Gambit, in recognition, apparently, of J.H. Blackburne’s use of it to win small stakes from players. However, I have yet to find a single game with it played by Blackburne. In fact, the earliest game uncovered was played in New Zealand in 1911. How did Blackburne’s name become attached to the variation? Indeed, when did it become attached?
Steinitz’s Modern Chess Instructor has a note on the line, but does not refer to Blackburne. Mr Blackburne’s Games at Chess makes no mention of it. Nor does Freeborough and Ranken’s Chess Openings Ancient and Modern attribute the line (given in a footnote) to anyone. E.E. Cunnington’s books (one on traps, one on openings for beginners), which were published in London shortly after the turn of the century, give the moves but do not name Blackburne.
One clue may be that the first edition of Hooper and Whyld’s Oxford Companion to Chess (1984) does not call the line by name, but the second edition (1992) calls it the Blackburne Shilling Gambit. Did the co-authors discover some historical information during that eight-year period?’
6470. Blackburne Shilling Gambit (C.N. 3786)
From page 429 of the December 1897 American Chess Magazine:
"All chess life seems to be with America," writes an esteemed and particularly well-posted English correspondent. "A great change has come over English chess. The 'old masters' are dying out. The new-born strength of amateurs has slaughtered them. They have no prestige. Names once of weight are now spoken of with contempt. No new professionals are coming in – no new Blackburnes or Birds. The 'nimble shilling,' for which the old professionals played at the Divan, is now too hardly earned. The country joskins know the openings and the principles, and instead of Bird's giving a Queen and winning twenty games in an hours, as I have seen ('hoc egomet oculis mei vidi'), he plays on even terms, and of five games wins only the odd one and a shilling. The ancient 'Shilling Gambit' is no longer a thing of dread. Young men from Birmingham walk into the Divan without awe and speak of giving odds. And the late H. Macaulay of this city (now Birmingham) actually conceded the Knight to a master who played and won a prize in the Manchester International, and Macaulay, giving the odds, won a majority of the games." - New Orleans Times-Democrat.
