What is this?

[Werewolf]

This ugly thing was played against me 3 times yesterday:

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Qe7

And black's plan is an early ...h6, followed by ...g5 and a knight comes to g6. Usually black puts pawns on c6 and d6 and transfers to queen to c7 to do this. It's not as easy to break in as it looks. My game continued:

3. Nc3 c6 4. Bc4 h6 5. O-O Nf6 6. d4 d6 7. a4 g5 8. Re1 Bg4 9. Be3 Nbd7 10. a5 a6

And I went on to win but only because he played badly. What is this called?

[Cumnor]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 - Gunderam Defense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdMK4jkWxBI

I have also tried 1e4 e5 2.Qe2 Not sure what this is called though

[Werewolf]

Another injustice of the chess board that this opening doesn’t lose.

And to think a few weeks ago we were questioning whether the Latvian lost or not...

[mhouppin]

I just analyzed a bit the position with Leela (SV-3010 net), and its idea seems to play d4 directly:

[pgn]
[Event "Gunderam Defence: Leela Analysis"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qe7 3. d4! d6 (3... exd4 4. Be2! Qxe4 5. O-O Nc6 6. Re1 Be7 7. Na3 Nf6 8. Nb5 $16) 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Nc3 c6 6. Be3 h6 7. a4 Qc7 8. h3 Be7 9. O-O O-O $14 *

[/pgn]

In the mainline, Black loses one tempo (Qc7) to develop his bishop and castle, in the variation, after the double pawn sacrifice, White goes for the attack with the development advantage and Black needs to be very careful about the position of its pieces (notably its Queen). The variation still looks playable from both sides, so I guess Qe7 is not that bad.

[Ajedrecista]

Hello:

I agree with Werewolf about the ugliness of this opening, but there is a curious fact: GM Teimour Radjabov played the Gunderam Defence with success against GM Michael Adams in 2004, drawing the game:

Michael Adams vs Teimour Radjabov (2004)

[pgn][Event "FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament"]
[Site "Tripoli LBA"]
[Date "2004.07.04"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "6.4"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Michael Adams"]
[Black "Teimour Radjabov"]
[ECO "C40"]
[WhiteElo "2731"]
[BlackElo "2670"]
[PlyCount "88"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qe7 3. Nc3 c6 4. d4 d6 5. Bc4 Bg4 6. dxe5 dxe5
7. h3 Bh5 8. g4 Bg6 9. Bg5 f6 10. Be3 Nd7 11. Nh4 O-O-O
12. Qe2 Nb6 13. Bb3 Qc7 14. Bd2 Bc5 15. O-O-O Ne7 16. Nf5 Nxf5
17. exf5 Bf7 18. Ne4 Bxb3 19. axb3 Be7 20. Ba5 Rd5 21. Bxb6
axb6 22. Rd3 Rxd3 23. Qxd3 Rd8 24. Qe2 b5 25. Rd1 Rd4 26. c3
Rd5 27. b4 Qb6 28. Kb1 Kb8 29. h4 Qd8 30. Kc2 Kc7 31. h5 Qa8
32. Kb1 Qg8 33. f3 Qd8 34. Rd2 Qd7 35. Kc2 h6 36. Rd1 Kb8
37. Ra1 b6 38. Qe1 c5 39. bxc5 bxc5 40. Qe2 c4 41. Rd1 Kc7
42. Rxd5 Qxd5 43. Qe3 Kb7 44. Nd2 Kb8 1/2-1/2[/pgn]

According to the PGN grabbed from ChessGames, Adams was 2731 Elo (category XX) at that moment while Radjabov was 2671 Elo (category XVII). An average Elo of 2701 (category XIX) which is not patzer at all!

The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, Volume C (fifth edition, 2006) does not include any single game of the Gunderam Defence or at least I have not found anything. It says a lot about this defence.

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[Ovyron]

I don't see why people call this ugly.

I find a counter-example of human made concepts like "don't bring your queen early" beautiful.

If one of my students played Qe7 I'd not go "GAH! What an ugly move! You're not supposed to play like that! Nobody is supposed to play like that!" I'd try to beat them and show why it's not good to play it by letting my moves talk.

But if I can't beat my student, then Qe7 is beautiful, and they're giving me a lesson.

[Eelco de Groot]

At first sight, it does not look so ugly to me. Only if Black has not castled and there would be no pawns on the e-file, then it would be ugly because Queen could be pinned aganst the King. But otherwise you increase Queen mobility without putting Queen in vulnerable spot so Queen position is better if Black wants to play active chess, King now can castle long but short castling is harder unless fianchetto. d4 attacks e5 so that makes sense from clearing the e-file perhaps? (If white attacks in the center, like with d4 then theory suggests Black can attack on the wings and that fits with what Werewolf says Black's plan is)