An Unexplored Opening

     The defense I used in this game has no name: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 d5. I did find some games with it on the 365Chess Opening Explorer. I don't think anybody would be surprised to discover that no well known player has ever played it...probably for a good reason! It could have turned into a rare sideline of the Elephant Gambit had white played 3.Nf3.  But, in this game white, rated 1700-ish, played what appears to be the best line according to Stockfish. When he traded Q's at move 4 (!) he assured himself of a lasting static positional advantage, but I was surprised at how quickly things got tactical even with Q's off the board! 
     As often happens, white lost his advantage when, at move 9, he decided to go after a Pawn rather than finish developing his pieces. The chances were even, but then on his 11th move, lured by the possibility of a check, white made tactical error when he overlooked the fact that 11...e5 cut off the defense of the N which had just eaten the P. My 17th move was not the best, but in practical play it created a lot of problems for white who was running low on time.