<According to the book - Morphy's games of chess by Philip W. Sergeant - This game does not exist.>

Morphy's Games of Chess wasn't designed to be an exhaustive collection and only contains 300 of Morphy's games. So exclusion doesn't necessarily mean nonexistance.

This leads Goulding Brown to surmise Deacon mixed up two games (identical up to move 9). Goulding Brown then reasons, that if Deacon supplied an Evans lost against AdR as lost against Morphy, he might have given a second Evans lost against Morphy as lost against AdR. In conclusion, he presents the game AdR vs Deacon (as published in February, 1860 and included in this database as played by Morphy) as a POSSIBLE genuine Morphy game.

Well, if we discount Goulding Brown's somewhat questionable reputation in his dealings with Morphy, and if we discount Steinitz's later assertions that Deacon tried a similar hoax on him, this is perhaps the reason why Lawson spent an entire chapter on something so patently false.

When everything else is discounted, common sense alone is enough to refute both Deacon's claims and Brown's defense.

I'm sorry. I just wrote what I thinking without much concern how it might sound. I'm aware of some of Brown's other contributions where Morphy is concerned and each one I've read strikes me as selective argumentation - that is, to prove his point rather than to find the ultimate truth. So, my reply wasn't so much to convince you, or anyone else, of anything, but to keep what would, and should, be considered an authoritative source from carrying too much weight. In other words, I was trying to show that there's two sides to the coin.

<There is a man in England who has a very unfortunate name.

We have known three persons named Church, and they were all great rascals. If a man’s name is Priest or Parson or Elder, you may safely set him down as an undesirable acquaintance. And if a man goes by the name of Deacon, take care that he does not commit a forgery upon you.

Now, this man in England is named Deacon, and the name, presumably, has ruined him....>

Example:
They left the city to get away from it all. Ironically, they found the campground full and crowded with people.

Regarding <Calli>'s last post, "I, for one, am not willing to make an assumption that he thinks that men with clerical names are rascals." - Whether he is even aware that this is mentioned in the article doesn't have anything to do with whether it's ironic.

A man named Pope posts an article for strictly informative purposes. Within that article, it makes mention of the fact that men with names such as Priest, Parson, etc. shouldn't be trusted, thus resulting in him indirectly telling people that he shouldn't be trusted.

One can read the definitions of irony here and see that this instance fits none: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictiona...