The Gunderam Defense, also known as the Brazilian Defense or the Câmara Defense if followed by moves ...g6, ...Bg7 and ...Nf6, creating the typical King's Indian formation, is a rarely played
chess opening
The opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established Chess_theory#Opening_theory, theory. The other phases are the chess middlegame, middlegame and the chess endgame, endgame. Many opening sequences, known as ''op ...
starting with the moves:
:1.
e4 e5
:2.
Nf3 Qe7
It is named after chess player and theoretician , though
Hélder Câmara
Hélder Pessoa Câmara (7 February 1909 – 27 August 1999) was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015 ...
played it 4 years prior to Gunderam.
History
The opening was first played by
International Master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...
Hélder Câmara
Hélder Pessoa Câmara (7 February 1909 – 27 August 1999) was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015 ...
in 1954, in the IV Centennial of the City of São Paulo Tournament and the XXII Brazilian Chess Championship.
Gunderam played it for the first time in a correspondence match against August Babel in 1958 and published an analysis of it in his book ''Neue Eröffnungswege'', in 1961. He named this defense "''Damenverteidigung''" ("Queen Defence"), whose main line would be 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Bc4 f5. He also analyzed a sharp line characterized by the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 3.Bc4 f5 4.exf5 d5 5.Bxd5 Nf6 6.Bb3 Bxf5.
In 1969, Washington de Oliveira published a work dedicated to the analysis of Câmara's use of the opening, called ''Notas Sobre a Defesa Brasileira'' ("Annotations on the Brazilian Defense").
Overview
Although 2...Qe7 does answer the threat against Black's e-pawn, it interferes with the development of Black's dark-square bishop. One of the ideas behind this awkward queen move is to unbalance the game by castling
queenside while White will presumably castle
kingside
This glossary of chess explains commonly used terms in chess, in alphabetical order. Some of these terms have their own pages, like ''fork'' and '' pin''. For a list of unorthodox chess pieces, see Fairy chess piece; for a list of terms specific ...
.
Whereas Gunderam's suggestion was the f7-f5 break, as a delayed
Latvian Gambit
The Latvian Gambit (or Greco Countergambit) is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
:1. e4 e5
:2. Nf3 f5
It is one of the oldest chess openings, having been analysed in the 16th century by Giulio Cesare Polerio and then the 17th cent ...
, Câmara's intent was to allow the use of the King's Indian setup against King's Pawn opening, proceeding with ...g6, ...Bg7 and ...Nf6 after 2...Qe7. It became popular among Brazilian players then, so much so they began calling it "the Brazilian defense", being employed often in the top national competition the following years. Later on, Hélder Câmara requested that it be called "Camara Defense" instead.
Notable games
August Babel vs Gerhart Gunderam, Germany (corr), 1958
See also
*
List of chess openings
This is a list of chess openings, organised by the ''Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings'' (''ECO'') code classification system. The chess openings are categorised into five broad areas ("A" through "E"), with each of those broken up into one hundred ...
*
List of chess openings named after people
''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' lists 1,327 named openings and variants. Chess players' names are the most common sources of opening names. The name given to an opening is not always that of the first player to adopt it; often an opening is name ...
References
{{reflist
Chess openings
1958 in chess