King's Pawn Game:Damiano Defense

Named after Pedro Damiano, the Portuguese apothecary whose book of 1512 already warns against it. After 3. Nxe5 Black is in trouble.

It is reached after 4 moves: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6. It is a line of the King's Pawn Game.

White is to move and has 27 legal moves. Over the next four moves — two for each side — the game can branch into 493,671 different games. Those games reach 173,345 different positions: most positions can be reached in more than one way, 2.8 on average.

The Lichess opening list names 2 further lines after this position, such as Damiano Gambit, Chigorin Gambit (3. Nxe5 Qe7 4. Nf3 d5) and Damiano Gambit (3. Nxe5 fxe5 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Qxe5+ Qe7 6. Qxh8).

The same moves can be played in 4 different legal orders that all reach this position. For example 1. Nf3 e5 2. e4 f6, which starts as the Zukertort Opening.