Napoleon Attack

The Napoleon Attack, also called the Napoleon Opening, is the early queen sortie 1. e4 e5 2. Qf3. The queen lines up on f7, the weakest point in Black's camp, and the usual follow-up is Bc4 to double the pressure there. The cost is that f3, the natural square for the g1-knight, is now occupied, so that knight must settle for e2 or h3. The queen also becomes a target for Black's developing moves.

The main tactical idea is a version of Scholar's Mate: after 2...Nc6 3. Bc4, the careless 3...Bc5?? allows 4. Qxf7#. Black avoids this without effort. The comparison with 2. Qh5, the Wayward Queen Attack (also known as the Parham Attack), favors the latter, because 2. Qh5 attacks e5 at once and, after ...Nc6 and Bc4, forces Black into a slightly awkward defense of f7. On f3 the queen threatens nothing immediately, so Black can choose any normal setup.

The most frequent reply is 2...Nc6, a natural developing move after which Black continues with ...Nf6 and kingside development while watching f7. The second most common, 2...Nf6, develops the knight to a square where it blocks the f-file and screens f7 from the queen. A smaller share of games see 2...d6, which supports e5 and opens the c8-bishop's diagonal, so that ...Bg4 can harass the queen. The engine names 2...Nf6, 2...Nc6 and 2...d6 as its top choices and rates the position as roughly balanced, with a slight lean toward Black; in practice Black has no difficulty reaching equality.

Among strong players the line is very rare, and opening references treat it as dubious because of the premature queen development and the obstructed knight. It is mostly seen in casual and online play, where it is used as a surprise or for its trap value, and it is a reasonably common sight there: the position arises in well over a hundred thousand Lichess games, with White scoring slightly better than Black and very few draws.