Opening Traps Book 1 and 2

Opening Traps

Playing through opening traps can be a lot of fun.

Also learning them gives you the opportunity to try them on your opponents.

Studying them also helps prevent you from falling into them.

As a FIDE master and chess coach I recommended studying opening traps as a good way for new players to learn openings beyond the basics. You can view my author for information about my other books.

Not only does studying opening traps help you develop familiarity with openings in general, it can also help develop your tactical skill in the middlegame and endgame. It is one more step that you can take towards being a tactical wizard.

This book uses hundreds of large clear color chess diagrams. The winning side will play up the board. You do not need a chess set to read this book.

This is Book 1 of a set of 2.

Book 1

This book concentrates on common basic tactical patterns. Variations of these patterns happen in many ways. To help you learn the patterns better, only relevant pieces will be present. The more tactical patterns and themes you are familiar with, the easier it will be for you to see tactics.

There are traps involving the King, including checks on the short diagonal, long diagonal, file, rank and by a Knight.

The Queen mates on the short diagonal.

These traps may involve checkmate or win of material by using tactical devices such as:

• Forks
• Pins
• Skewers
• Discoveries
• etc.

There are traps not involving the King, including forks, trapped pieces etc.

Book 2

This book consists of a collection of hundreds of short games with brief notes. Most of these games I have either played or watched while they were being played, over several decades. Some are famous games. In some cases the games have been played more than once. Some games include well known opening traps, some with names, others without. Games are in approximate alphabetical order of their moves. This means that openings are grouped together.

1.d4 b5 2.e4 a6 3.c4 Bb7 4.f3 bxc4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.Qb3 Nc6

Setting the trap.

7.Qxb7?

...Na5

Trapping the Queen.

You can either play through them and guess the next move of the winning side or simply play through them. The level of games varies from being one move deep up to more than 10 moves deep. There are traps that masters have fallen into.