White picks up the undefended pawn. This is the classical continuation of Petrov's defence aka the Russian game. Before Black can recover the pawn, they must drive White's knight away, or else choose to gambit it.

The natural move 3...Nxe4!?, the Damiano variation, doesn't actually recover the pawn, as after 4. Qe2 Black runs into difficulties with pins on the open e-file. The classic beginner's trap is 4...Nf6?? 5. Nc6+, winning Black's queen. (Instead, Black can sacrifice the pawn in this line. See below.)

Therefore Black has to drive White's knight away first. 3...d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 is the main line. Without White's knight on the e-file, if 5. Qe2 this can be defused by 5...Qe7, defending and unpinning the knight.

3...Nc6?! is the most "in vogue" at amateur levels: the explosive Stafford gambit. After 4. Nxc6 dxc6, Black has sacrificed their pawn but opened the position, ready to play ...Bc5 and ...Ng4 for a swift attack on White's f2 square.

Black may also give up the pawn with 3...Nxe4!? 4. Qe2 Qe7, the Kholmov gambit. After 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5 7. dxe5 (trading knights) Nc6, it's often too perilous for White to hold onto the extra pawn.

For explanation of theory tables, see theory table and for notation, see algebraic notation.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5

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Wikipedia has related information at Petrov Defence

• Kasparov, Garry, & Keene, Raymond 1989 Batsford chess openings 2. ISBN 0-8050-3409-9.