Is it Henry Bird?

Are we talking about the worst player or the worst opening named after a strong player? For worst opening it has to be the Damiano Defense, @chessanalyst have you seen this game?http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1027995

LOL. I know what the damiano is. Its one of the first openings I teach kids how to refute. And no I mean the worst player not the worst opening but that has to compete for the worst opening ever.

A famous game in the damiano is one where bobby fischer had white and he could only draw.

edit: dont tell my students about that game LOL.

Reason why I mention Bird was bad is he had a -10 score or something like that against Morphy (But he was really good).

Nimzowitsch.

Barnes Defense 1.e4 f6?
It was used to defeat Morphy once however

Nimzowitsch was pretty good though.

I read some time ago that Damiano never played the Damiano defense himself.

See also : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence#History

Probably cause its terrible and even he knew it. @achja

I've heard Evans Gambit was invented by an amateur player.

I don't know if Ruy Lopez was much of a player? But he sure came up with a great opening!...also Albin had his albin counter gambit, and he never had any great success. :]