GOTW 5: The Damiano Defense

Hello, chess.com!  It's HitThePin, and welcome back to Game of The Week.

Let's journey back to the time of 1610: before there were computers that could crush any human, before there was FIDE, before there was an official system of world champions, before the United States of America even existed and wouldn't for another 150 years.

A man named Pedro Damiano was analyzing the following opening:

We have all played Black and seen the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 get played out on the board.  There are at least three different perfectly acceptable moves to be played here:

All three of these options are perfectly acceptable, analyzed to certain death, and are played out on the board at all levels.

But these aren't the only moves.  The opening that our friend Damiano was looking at was this one:

He found it quite wanting.  Why push the f-pawn and open a diagonal directly to the Black King -  a diagonal the White Queen can reach in a heartbeat.  Why try to defend the e-pawn with the inadequate f-pawn: a task that actually fails at.  Damiano condemned the opening and called it weak.

In one of the quirks of history, however, the very opening that he thought of as weak thus had his name attached to it by his peers.  Everyone he knew kept this up, until the opening's name officially became the Damiano Defense.  Unfortunately for him, now one of the biggest things Damiano is remembered for is a terrible opening. (the other thing he is known for is his beautiful mating pattern, Damiano's mate.  Stay tuned: I'll be talking about it in a later post.)

The subpar move 2... f6 is never seen at the top level today, however, lower-level players seem to like playing it.  This game features that move and defense.

Without further ado, enjoy the game!

PS: I am sorry to you readers that I didn’t have the time to put in a longer game. Please do not condemn me and my blog like the featured defense was.