Has anyone ever given the Guatemala Defense a try? Ive tried researching it and found very little information on it, so if I could get some input that would be great.

Haven't seen this before... strikes me as poor play, as white I'd probably trade bishops and force the black knight to the outside of the board right away, leaving me with total control of the center and black with not much to speak of.

Regardless of what the proper response is; in game explorer, it says white has won 75% of master games where this was played. (A grand total of 16.) 

It might work on chess.com because we're not masters, but I'd be a bit surprised if you found it successful. 

I have more information about it with games.  The first player that used it was Hans Cohn.  He lived in Guatemala and He was born in Germany.  I think years 40s.

At first glance, after the exchange of bishops, white has two center pawns on their ideal squares, and black has a knight on.....a6? What's it doing over there? At least if the c-pawn had moved it could go to c7. No, this doesn't look too promising. But I'm sure somebody will find some spectacular wins for black with this strange opening.......

I have played it a few times.  There are over two dozen games with this opening in some of the larger databases.

Well, billwall, obviously white made plenty of blunders in your game. But what's interesting is the reply to 2...Ba6, 3.Be2. I thought this was a good idea at first, as 3...Bxe2 4.Nxe2 (or Qxe2) seems to promote white's development. But I think it just really wastes a tempo. Simply 3.Bxa6 Nxa6 4.Qe2 looks a lot better. I found a game in another database where black then tried 4...Qc8. The game continued 5.Nf3 Qb7 6.O-O O-O-O? 7.Ne5, and black was already in trouble.

I have had three games where I met ...Ba6 with 3.Bxa6, which does look best.

Yes. Not even bothering to attack the knight on a6 immediately is a good idea, too. The knight seems misplaced there, and most threats from an eventual Nb4 are easily paried.

<<<<<<<<<<<i know

I kposssible now the game for black could be closed but, I won a game and  I found games where black won and they aren´t exist in data bases.  This defense it´s possible playing as a surprise element for shocking the other oponnent.  Best wishes!

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I want to know new comments about it... best wishes!

Merry Xmas From Guatemala...!!!