Beautiful Ruy Lopez trap wins for black(me)!

Hey guys, check out this ditty! It was soo sweet to pull off. It's a variation of a more commonly known trap in the 'Ruy Lopez, bishop takes knight' opening, whereby white fails to immediately snag the pawn whose defender is removed with 4. BxN ... as such black's move 5. .... B-g4 pins the knight and is definitive in accomplishing this trap. Check it out and enjoy it as I did:

I tried to add the alternative line of play after 13.  ... g3 but somehow I messed up. So I'm adding another board to show the BEST line of play after white resigned, and thus why the resignation was justified:

Well played... I tend to under-value the pawn's role in becoming a queen in the back... blocking an escape made more sense to me... the first (brown board) option made more sense, and I saw what you were up to after you sacrificed the knight.

From the black side, it would be hard for me to give up material unless I was pretty sure my trap would work.  Move 11 Nxe4 is a hard one to swallow, what if the opponent did in-fact Qxg4... I am going to try this one on my buddy.... we nearly always open this way.  I hope he falls for it!!! : )

One other thought... this is only successful if white castles.  If the opponent instead brings the pawn up (h2-h3), it throws a wrench in it... you'd just do the bishop-knight swap (of course, you would open up his defense on that side).

Still, nicely played.  I'll let you know how it works for me! : )

~Dave

Hey Dave,

Thanks for posting! I just wanted to address your response... I know what you mean about move 11. , however, remember, that if indeed the queen does take the pawn instead, then there are viable options for black:

A) 11. ... Nxe4  12. Qxg4  N-f6 (immediately challenging the queen) and securing the centre.

And

B) 12. Qxg4 R-h4 (challenging the queen and protecting the knight X-ray style). After kicking out the queen, the next move for black may be for instance 13. ... Nxc3 thereby equalizing the game in terms of material (pointswise) and black having a slightly superior overall position.

In the first example (A) Black is only 1 pawn behind and has a clear advantage in terms of position with the ability to castle on both sides the queen in good playing position, and the rook bearing down on the kingside. There was no real risk to me as black in this game I think, either way, once the trap was made possible, black either had the edge or was on very equal playing ground. 

There was one more thing, to address what you meant about the knight sacrifice (which is not part of the original trap) and about the castling. White castling is very natural, and the trap would not be initiated unless this was done. Remember, this was a VARIATION of the original true trap. Here is how the basic trap would go:

Hope that clarifies things a little, but thank you for responding, and I hope you succeed in getting your friend with this trap or a variation of it. Let me know what happens!

In the game of post #5, black misses 10. ... Qh1#, game over.

In the second game of post #1, why doesn't white play 15. Kh1, preventing black from making a new queen. (The annotation says 15. Kf1 is white's only move, I don't understand this comment.)

Yes, you are correct about this. I made an error with all the different variations in mind. So this further proves my point about this opening trap variation.

The sad thing is anyone any good won't take the bishop and then you have to play very accuretly as black to get a good game.

For first game :

d3, innaccurcy: proper play for the Ruy Lopez would have white take advantage of removing the guard and take the pawn 5. Nxe5- you are simply wrong d3 although not best is a much better move then Nxe5 which can be answered by Qd4 getting the pawn with a perfectly fine position for black, the correct way to play is  0-0

5...Bg5 is not good here, it can be simply answered by h6 and you have to give up the bishop

7..Bb4 is worse then Qf6 puting extra presure on the knight, in the spanish exchange you generally want to keep your bishop pair it's the only trump you have

8..Nf6 IS a blunder since it blocks the queens access, Qf6 was necessary

11..Nxe4 IS not a ! more of a ?? however the position is already lost, white plays Qxg4 and your mating threats are gone and you'll lose

Seems all this has already been pointed out :(.

If White is going to play the Exchange variation he ought to at least study it first, then he would know how to counter Black's standard plan of Bg4 (with the idea of saccing the bishop for a winning attack after h3 by white and h5 by Black).  

He would not have played it so badly if he knew as little as you can find in the games and analysis in Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games", and that book is getting on for 50 years old.

At the very least he should have played his QN to d2 rather than c3, which would allow the Q to get out of the pin whilst keeping the K-side pawns intact.  Nevertheless, due to Black's several blunders, White ought to have won (12. Qxg4).

As for the OP 17... 0-0-0 + !!! Wins white's queen

N×e5 Qd4

N×e5 Qd4

N×e5 Qd4