The Napoleon Opening (aka Napoleon Atrack: 1.e4 e5 2.Qf3) is considered to be a rather dubious line because white is often playing for a Scholar’s Mate in a more benign form than the more popular, but still bad, 2. Qh5. Add to the fact that white’s queen is also blocking the king’s knight from being ideally placed on f3 and we start to understand why The Napoleon Opening has a bad reputation. That being said, I have had reasonably good results using the Napoleon Opening without the expectation of using the Scholar’s Mate but with the intention of placing my king’s knight on e2 and then using the odd piece placement to play unique positions tactically.
In the game below, I used the Napoleon Attack in conjunction with a Fishing Pole Trap (It’s called the Fishing Pole Trap because a piece is used as bait to catch a fish.) to play an instructive game against my student. Again, this training game was played at rook odds to allow for a more challenging game.
[Event “Blitz at Rook Odds”]
[Site “San Mateo, Ca”]
[Date “2024.02.07”]
[Round “?”]
[White “Chris Torres”]
[WhiteElo “”]
[Black “William”]
[BlackElo “”]
[Result “1-0”]
[FEN “rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq -“]
1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nc6 4.Ne2 Bc5 5.d3 O-O 6.Bg5 h6 7.h4 hxg5 8.hxg5 Re8
9.Nbc3 d6 10.gxf6 Qxf6 11.Qh5 Qxf2+ 12.Kd1 Kf8 13.Nd5 f6 14.Qg6 Be6 15.Rh8+ Bg8
16.Rxg8+ Kxg8 17.Nxf6+ Kf8 18.Qf7#
1-0