hm im a fan of legal's mate
Your favorite opening trap
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Apr 25, 2010
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#3
LisaV wrote:
I love the fishing pole. Not a mistake, but if you put black squared bishop on c5, white can't move the pawn on f2. White's stuck in mud.
It's great when it works, but when the opponent knows about it or figures out the danger, I've found it's wonderful for white. lol
Hmm...It's great when it works, but when the opponent knows about it or figures out the danger... Well, that wouldn't make it any fun for me!
My blitz play took a nose dive into the low 600's recently while messing arround with The Sicilian. Arg! I'm now inching close to 700 - where 750 is about where I should be. So, I doubt I will encounter players as experienced as you for a long time. 
Can you think of any traps that you think might help a lowly sub-800 player beat up on another sub-800 player in a 5 minute blitz game? In 5 minutes, guys below 800 hang a ton of pieces anyway. Whoever hangs the fewest pieces wins! LOL!
I do hang fewer pieces when I play 7 minute game with 5 second increments. With so few chess patterns stored in my little brain, 5/0 is too fast for me to think, as I must calculate on almost every move. 
Fiveofswords wrote:
oh heres another one im tired of seeing
Black can grab another pawn and ruin White's castling ability by checking on f2 before castling (to avoid checkmate).
A few traps;
Fiveofswords wrote:
ok grammarnazi....black can do that, and its lost, but yeah he can do it lol
Define lost. Black is down a point, but I wouldn't call white's position a result of a "trap." If you would like to try this game out with me, I'll take black and we'll play it:)
msoewulff wrote:
I'm scared that I'm missing something obvious, but how is this a trap? Black is threatening the knight/g2 pawn? What about his f7 pawn?
"No, stuff liek Qh4 does not work."
Define "work?" Qh4 is black's best bet:
"If black takes the knight, white takes the bishop, going up a pawn"
What?
Also, what about that classic KGD game? (Not exactly a common trap, but still...)
And another of my favorites, the Lasker Trap in the Albin Countergambit:
Enjoy!
gramarnazi wrote:
A few traps;
You're being over-optimistic here. This is the Fried Liver Attack, and is considered to be slightly unsound for White - there is no forced mate here, though White has a very powerful attack and Black must play extremely carefully. Generally with enough time to think Black can refute this; which makes it better as a weapon for OTB play than correspondence chess. (More info: Black's recapture 5. ...Nxd5?! is indeed dubious, but the safer response by White is the Lolli Attack 6. d4! which gives White a small but solid advantage.) In any case Black should not have recaptured the pawn in the first place (main line is 5. ...Na5, sacrificing the pawn for positional advantage; i.e. it's a gambit opening); but since we're talking opening traps here I guess someone has to make a mistake at some point.
(Incidentally, the Fried Liver Attack game you're thinking of might be the Morphy one where he gave queen's rook odds to his opponent and ended with checkmate by castling. Or could have, at least.)
@Eebster, I noticed that apparent flaw in the Legal Trap too when I first saw it, but here's how you rescue it.
The Elephant Trap;
Legal mate
Eebster wrote:
"No, stuff liek Qh4 does not work."
Define "work?" Qh4 is black's best bet:
"If black takes the knight, white takes the bishop, going up a pawn"
What?
Also, what about that classic KGD game? (Not exactly a common trap, but still...)
And another of my favorites, the Lasker Trap in the Albin Countergambit:
Enjoy!
Thanks for reminding me. From there, white can easily get the knight back:
I got caught by this one.
I like the Tarrasch Trap in the Queen's Gambit Declined.
ive had those alot
tigergutt,
Awesome list, but I'm afraid I don't see a forced mate/material compensation in the second to last one. Care to enlighten me?
I stumbled onto this opening trap which I found both entertaining and instructive. A GM Walter Browne was beat in this trap by a guy 1000 points lower in elo during a simul. It's called the fishing pole trap and you can learn more about it by watching either the youtube presentation by jrobichess http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqq2OAU3JQk or Brian Wall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exGSXjvKej0&feature=fvw.
I'm only a year into my chess journey, so if you have little interest in posting a favorite trap because all of this is old hat to you, then I'd much appreciate your feedback on a favorite book on traps.
Why traps? I'm a pretty passive player in blitz play, so I am exploring ways to be a more attacking player.
All annotations are mine. If I made any mistakes, please feel free to fix them. I hope you enjoy playing the Ruy Lopez as Black in a blitz game in the future and taking White completely out of book.