Don't Play the Damiano!

Theme: Openings

Level: Beginner

As a naïve chess beginner who has just entered the cruel world of pawn-eat-pawn, you are most likely to be fortunate/unfortunate enough to have encountered the infamous fool's mate or wayward queen (aka scholar's mate). It is like the baptism of chess - "Ha ha! It is your fault to fall for my trick!", mocked that annoying chess friend whose name is totally not Damien and which is totally not my personal experience. 

You learned your lesson, moved on in life, and thought that you would never make such an amateur opening mistake and lose in move 2 again. "Push your center pawn, protect it with pieces and develop normally!" What could go wrong? In fact, a lot of things. 

1. The Damiano Defense

The Damiano Defense is a dubious (that is actually an understatement) opening which can be reached after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6??. It looks natural to protect our e5 pawn, but this move causes a few problems: 

1. It blocks in our queen and occupies a natural development square for our g8 knight, now there are at least three pieces contending for the e7 square (dark square bishop, knight, queen).

2. The move wastes a tempo as it does not develop a piece or open any new diagonals/files for our pieces for development purposes.

3. The worst thing is, it opens up the h5-e8 diagonal, exposing our weak king. If we want to castle short in future, the a2-g8 diagonal is especially weak too. In fact, Bc4 immediately by white will stop us from any short-castling ideas forever.

This can't be that bad....right? To add insult to injury, there is a tactical idea that wins on spot.

2. Refuting the Damiano

The best defense in the Damiano for black is to admit your mistake with 3...Qe7 and not capture the knight, but it is still positionally losing because of the factors listed above. Here is a sample game with engine:

3. Engine take on Damiano

A funny thing is, Bobby Fischer himself has actually struggled to convert against the Damiano as white (though it was a simul).

4. Fischer Robert J vs McGregor Robert F

So, the final lesson? Don't try Damiano at home or anywhere unless your opponent is drunk enough, or Bobby Fischer (joking, he was one of the best), or both.