The Lasker Trap - Quickly Take The Queen

My last post detailed how to take the advantage as black, capturing a knight, and trading queens and bishops. However, not many players are fans of queen trades, and you might be thinking: Is there a way to counter the queen’s gambit and take the queen without losing yours?

Spoiler alert: Yes

That is what the Lasker Trap is for. Like the Cambridge Springs Trap, it begins with white moving to launch a queen’s gambit, but this time, instead of declining the gambit, black launches the Albin Countergambit:

Then, white captures the e-pawn. If you are black and want to play this trap, do not take the c-pawn. That only leads to a queen trade, and your inability to castle:

Instead, move your pawn forward:

Now, white moves to trade pawns, and gain control of the center. They do this by moving the e-pawn. Black then moves their bishop to check:

White now has to block. Oftentimes, they will move their bishop, and therefore launch a bishop trade. Black then captures the e-pawn:

Now, white’s bishop is under threat. However, they can easily take black’s bishop, which is not protected and is a threat. What does white have to lose?

Their queen.

If white takes the bishop, they fall into the trap:

Now black moves their pawn again, capturing the f-pawn and checking the king:

If white captures the pawn, nothing guards their queen, and black can just take it:

So they have to move their king. The only other square to move it to is d2:

Now black takes the knight, and promotes, checking the king:

It is important that black promotes to a knight. If they dont, the king isn’t checked, and white can launch a queen trade and save themselves:

To avoid this, the pawn HAS to become a knight. Now, with the king checked, the best move is to capture the knight with the rook:

Black then moves their bishop to check the king:

Now white is skewered has to move the king, enabling the bishop to capture the queen:

You might be wondering, why capture the knight? Because if you don’t, white has a piece to block the check:

But what if white does Nd2 to block the check? Then, you can develop your queen, and capture the rook. First, black moves their pawn to capture:

Black then moves their queen to check:

White will likely block with g3:

You can then move your queen to e4. With the rook trapped, it will be taken on the next move. The knight cannot take the queen because it is pinned. If it moves, the bishop takes the king.

This trap is a deadly one to those who know it. The best way to counter is to not move your e-pawn at all, and instead use a knight to take the pawn:

As my pawn cannot get over, I cannot check, and therefore cannot trap.

An alternative is to trade pawns first and then launch a bishop trade:

Now, even though that is just a pawn and bishop trade, it results in a piece guarding the queen, and white losing some developed pieces, therefore giving black the advantage.

Doing Nf6 in response to the check also foils the trap, as now, if black moves their pawn, white can just launch a queen trade:

However, white still loses a knight, so this isn’t the best choice.

As this trap has no queen trade, it is better than the Cambridge Springs Trap. However, due to its effectiveness, it is likely that more advanced players know this one better than that one, so use this one with caution, but when it does work, you could get mate in just a few moves.

The past 2 posts have been about traps to get the advantage as black. My next one will focus on how to as white, so make sure to follow this blog.

Hope you all learned something

— ChessPawn921