King's Pawn Game: Wayward Queen Attack

The Wayward Queen Attack is 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5: White brings the queen out on move two, attacking e5 and eyeing f7. It is also known as the Danvers Opening, the Kentucky Opening, the Queen's Attack, the Patzer Opening and the Parham Attack, and is classified as C20.

Origins

Its earliest known appearance in print was in the Dubuque Chess Journal in May 1875, which called it the Kentucky Opening, perhaps after a game played in Danville, Kentucky. In 1905 the American Chess Bulletin called it the Danvers Opening, a name given by E. E. Southard, a psychiatrist and strong amateur player, after the hospital where he worked.

Bernard Parham of Indianapolis was one of the few master-level players to advocate it, as part of his "Matrix System" of early queen moves. The most notable use by a grandmaster came in 2005, when Hikaru Nakamura played it in two tournament games, against Nikola Mitkov and against Krishnan Sasikiran. He lost to Sasikiran but wrote afterwards that he believed 2.Qh5 is playable and that he had a very good position. More often it is a novice's opening: the actor Woody Harrelson played it against Garry Kasparov in a 1999 exhibition and drew with the help of several grandmasters, and the next year Kasparov beat the tennis player Boris Becker in 17 moves when he tried it.

The idea

Developing the queen this early breaks a basic opening principle and exposes her to attack. Still, it causes Black some problems. Black must first defend e5, usually with 2...Nc6, and after 3.Bc4 Black has to stop the mate threat on f7 with a concession: 3...g6 commits to a kingside fianchetto, 3...Qe7 blocks the bishop, and 3...Qf6 takes the knight's best square. Many players use 2.Qh5 hoping for Scholar's Mate, for example 2...Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qxf7#, but Black can avoid it easily.

Main lines

• 2...Nc6 is the most common reply. After 3.Bc4 g6 4.Qf3 Nf6 5.Ne2 the main position is reached: White is not worse but has no advantage either.
• 2...Nf6, the Kiddie Countergambit, gives up a pawn for development. FIDE Master Dennis Monokroussos calls it the "psychologically correct" response.
• 2...d6 and 2...Qe7 defend e5 but block Black's king's bishop.
• 2...g6 loses a rook and a pawn to 3.Qxe5+, and 2...Ke7 allows 3.Qxe5#.

The numbers

On Lichess White wins 50.4% of the 3.6 million games and Black 45.1%. The split hardly moves with rating: 50.4% against 45.3% under 1400, and 51.7% against 41.9% from 2200 up. There are too few master games over the board, 48, to say much.