Why would anyone use the damiano defense????

This is the worst defense in the game apart from f3 g4.  Why do people still use it?????

Yeah, the Damiano opening is pretty horrible, but black can still... kinda fight with 3. Qe7.

People use it because they usually don't realize how horrible it actually is. =)

yep. i see it around in blitz live chess (online) but only find the people who play it are people who dont know any better! bad bad players in my experience i usually take the pawn and win quickly!

man im even surprised it has a name!

 here is the strongest move for black after nxp: resign!

lol

 agree. The danaimo defense is terrible. danaimo probably deserved a better fate.

:)

Especially since Damiano's main contribution to this opening was condemning it as a terrible response to Nf3.

I guess he would have been better off not saying anything about it at all.

lol

 Sam sloan played it and said that he could win against any player under 2100 with it. Fischer only drew against it.

 It IS horrible, but white's move have to be the good ones for the win. If you don't know it by heart, you will lose your time trying to find them.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mcgrew11.pdf

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1366040

I also heard that a master had played it to trap white's queen in the corner. So, a queen for a rook, not bad?!

 nonsense: after 3...Qe7 Black is getting back his pawn and ends up with a playable position though he is definitely worse.  I've played this several times in blitz and beaten some decent players.

In fact 3. Nxe5?! might not even be the best move for White.  After say 3. Bc4 White has an obvious advantage - what is the pawn doing on f6?

what the heck why would you do that?

AMazinglyy

because they dum dum

I tried it for a while, it is definitely not a loss. However I could not find a good reason for black to play it since he has permanent weaknesses and nothing to show for it. 

I beg to differ, what you should do is open with that, but instead of killing their pawn, pull your bishop over and up a bit, put the queen behind him, and use it to check the king. they usually immediately sacrifice their queen or a rook to your rook.

Yeah, it's not fair that we call this the Damiano Defense.  Damiano never played it or proposed playing it, instead he gave the first clear refutation of it.  We really should call it something else.

Here's a miniature victory against 3...Qe7.

its not so bad if you think about it

@rychessmaster1 dude you're like 1864 fide.

His blitz seems impressive at a glance and he claims to have beaten gms... but then you realize he plays them all without increment so yeah... that doesn't count for much. He has a rapid rating of 2031 which is ok but nothing to write home about.

Plenty of people here would beat him whether he plays the damiano defence or the normal 2. ...Nc6.