A pocketful of rye: bait for birds, I'd imagine.

However, the poem details that not just the young lady drowned; the entire ship was lost with all hands.

Interestingly, there was a Patrick Spens who was lost off Aberdour in the 16th century.

You wrote, "...27. Ke3 loses to 27. ... d4+".

As noted the game is taken from "Transactions of the British Chess Association, p. 89", whose full title is "Transactions of the British Chess Association for the years 1866 and 1867", edited by Johann Jacob Loewenthal and George Webb Medley and published in 1868. The final comment is: "And after several more moves, Black won the game." This looks like a simple mistake, because White is winning, but the comment at 25.Qxg4+ is: "A mistaken combination." Looking on page 9, where the results are given in an unusual form, one gets: "Mr. De Vere won from Herr Steinitz, Colonel Robertson, Dr. Fraser and Messrs. Hamel, Spens, and MacDonnell, and drew a game with Mr. G.B. Fraser - total 6 1/2."

Therefore I checked "The English Morphy" by Hindle & Jones. According to them (p 12), Spens finished last with only a half point. This can also be found in Löwenthal's chess column in "The Era" of September 29, 1867.

Here one can find a few more sources: http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/....

I have found no source claiming that Spens finished with a full point or more. Moreover, both players did not met at another event in Dundee 1867: Spens played the "Scotch Tournament", but De Vere did not. And De Vere was eliminated from the "Handicap Tournament" in the first round by Blackburne. So, this game should belong to the "Grand Tournament" as reported by Löwenthal and Medley.

However, before I am going to submit a change request, I would like to continue to find the remaining moves. I have checked the contemporary newspapers which I can access, but the "Illustrated London News" is not among them. Some help is very much welcome.

I agree with the assertion that de Vere won, in order to match all the contemporaneous accounts.

The Transactions give the game as <CG> has it, and it's clearly wrong. There is no way Black went on to win.

Well, not the Black of our contemporary usage. But back then, Black might have first move...

<There is no way Black went on to win.> Well, if White "found" 27.♔e3?, he is already lost.

<I propose the simple fix of switching the player's color (contemporary usage, i.e. DeVere was White).> I dislike this idea. Contradictory sources or conflicting information are routine, and in such cases I try to follow the statement that E. Winter made in C.N. 8222:

<That is how proper writers (not only historians, of course) work. When they know, they explain why they know. When they are uncertain, they explain why they are uncertain. When they do not know, they either say that they do not know or they say nothing. That is honest writing which treats the reader with respect, and there is no other kind worth doing.> (I don't remember how often I quoted this.)

+++

Back to this game: presently everyone can see the problem, and that's fine for me. If someone would exchange the player names, then the problem is hidden, but the solution is unproved, or there are in fact two mistakes which no one is able to notice.

For the record, and before I present some counter-arguments on the particulars, I always argue for clear documentation of the situation.

Anyone who has ever read my blog knows I do so to the point of tedium.

I never want to hide information. So, I am doubly unhappy with the situation as it now stands.

We very likely have the wrong colors, we almost certainly have the wrong result, and this situation isn't documented in either the PGN or the tournament intro.

You are unhappy with the current situation, and me, too. During the past days I've spend again several hours with searching another source. In vain - quite frustrating!

<My proposed correction can be done in complete congruence with Winter's admonition by explicitly documenting the changes in both the intro and the PGN.> I'm not going to doubt this.

I like your proposed correction a lot. Really! But it is based on a guess. And other guesses are possible, too. The current game score, however, is in coincidence with the only two known sources of the game. Okay, these two sources are not independent, but I consider this information to be of some value.

<The Grand Tourney was brought to a termination yesterday, when two games were played - one being won by Herr Neumann from Mr G. B. Fraser, and the other was <won by Mr De Vere from Mr W. C. Spens.>> Plus Dundee Courier gives Spens 1/2 only in final score.

"De Vere definately won the game. The question is whether he was Black or White. After 5 other games as White (and 3 as Black) he was probably Black, in which case Spens must have made a mistake later, say 27.Ke3"