Typical Patterns Everyone Should Know: The Trapped Rook
The pattern we are going to discuss today is unique in many ways. First of all, every single tactical pattern we've talked about so far can happen both in an opening or in a middle game, but today's pattern usually happens only in an early opening stage. Secondly, most of the tactical textbooks ignore this pattern for some reason. Yes, you can find the games where this pattern happened, but I've never seen a book or a chess article devoted to this pattern. Maybe that explains why so many strong chess players fell for this trap.
I learned this pattern as a boy in a book devoted to the Queen's Gambit Accepted, where I found the next game:
(Just like in most of my articles I give you a chance to test your tactical skills, so the games are given as a Quiz. Please remember that you can always replay the whole game from the first move if you click "Solution" and then "Move list.")
