Did He Deserve To Have His Opening Named After Him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Damiano

Yes. At least he has more to do with the moves than Philidor, who has never played his pet opening during his career 😛

No, it is a great injustice to him. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, 2... Nc6 should be the called the Damiano Defence, it was , after all , what he recommended.

Originally posted by heinzkat
Yes. At least he has more to do with the moves than Philidor, who has never played his pet opening during his career 😛

There is no recorded game of Phildor playing this opening but it's a safe
bet to say he did as he praises it in his writings and he was classed at that time
as the strongest chess player in the world.

Phildor was not his real name, this was his nick name given to him by the
King of France. He was Andre Doucan.

There is evidence claiming he was one Andrew Duncan a farmer from Selkirk
in Scotland whose musical skill found favour in the French court.

Ruy Lopez also said 2...d6 was the best 2nd move because if 2...Nc6
then 3.Bb5 was good for White. That is why 3.Bb5 bears his name.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
There is no recorded game of Phildor playing this opening but it's a safe
bet to say he did as he praises it in his writings and he was classed at that time
as the strongest chess player in the world.

Phildor was not his real name, this was his nick name given to him by the
King of France. He was Andre Doucan.

There is evidence claiming he was o ...[text shortened]... t 2nd move because if 2...Nc6
then 3.Bb5 was good for White. That is why 3.Bb5 bears his name.

Yes, but you have to bear in mind that the modern rules of chess hadn't really settled down when Ruy Lopez was writing, if you have a strong queen and some form of castling-by-hand then your priorities in the early opening change a lot, so at the time it could be that 2. ... d6 was better. Modern castling didn't really appear until 1,620 or so.

I think Damiano got a better line named after him as well, so it's not a complete loss for him.