The Napoleon Attack (is bad…)

#NapoleonAttack 

As the story goes, Napoleon Bonaparte, the great general who later became Napoleon I of France in 17th and 18th century, was a great chess enthusiast, but not a very good player. As such, perhaps we can feel some degree of affinity with the man as he was probably at the beginner-intermediate level!

The Napoleon Attack, which is named after him, perhaps demonstrates the aggressive enthusiasm of a lower-level player, with an early queen move. It is very similar to the Wayward Queen Attack after a king’s pawn opening, e4 e5, but with the queen moving to the f3 square rather than h5. It is arguably a less good version of the Wayward Queen as white doesn’t immediately threaten the pawn on e5, and blocks in the natural development square of the king’s knight. If one is kind, it could potentially be seen as a more refined version of the Wayward Queen Attack that retains a degree of conservatism, but really, it’s just shittier!

The logic to the Napoleon Attack is to set up a scholar’s mate, but it’s easy to deflect. I’ve played one previous game before of the Napoleon Attack where I managed to achieve a reverse scholar’s mate on move 8. However, I think that player simply wasn’t very good. In the game today, I opted to play very provocatively by bringing out my own queen symmetrically to f6 to immediately nerf any glimmer of hope of a scholar’s mate. My opponent took the bait and we ended up with a moderately ridiculous queen trade on move 3 but leaving me effectively up a move of tempo.

The game then proceeded like a queen-less four knights game, and my opponent became undone by some unwise aggressive moves that resulted in a loss of material.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/46834176891