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Damiano Defence

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The Damiano defense

The Damiano Defense is an inferior chess opening characterized by the opening moves

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 f6?

Black's 2...f6? is a poor move that weakens Black's king-side and takes away his knight's best square. 3.d4 and 3.Bc4 are strong replies, but most forceful is the knight sacrifice 3.Nxe5! Taking the knight with 3...fxe5 exposes Black to a deadly attack after 4.Qh5+ Ke7 (4...g6 loses to 5.Qxe5+, forking king and rook) 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+. (See Sample chess game). Since taking the knight is fatal, after 3.Nxe5 Black should instead play 3...Qe7! 4.Nf3 Qxe4+ 5.Be2. Black has regained the pawn but has lost time and weakened his kingside, and will lose more time when White chases the queen with Nc3, or with 0-0 and Re1.

The name of the opening comes from the Portuguese master Pedro Damiano (1480-1544), who correctly condemned it as weak.

The ECO code for the Damiano Defence is C40 (King's knight Opening).

This opening is never seen in top-level play today. Perhaps the only chess expert to play the black side of it is Sam Sloan. Sloan has no significant improvement on the main line, however, and plays into it hoping that White doesn't know the line. After 3.Nxe5!, Sloan plays 3...fxe5? 4.Qh5+ Ke7 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ d5! 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.h4 h6 (8...h5, with similar play, is "book"), when 9.Bxb7! Bd6 10.Qa5! Nc6 11.Bxc6 leaves White with a won position. The greatest player to play it in serious master competition was Mikhail Chigorin, who played it in a match with Emmanuel Schiffers in Saint Petersburg 1897, lost his queen on move 10, but Schiffers played so weakly that Chigorin later missed a brilliant forced mate and only drew.

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