a few grandmaster opening tricks !!

When you play an arena or many blitz or bullet games in a row, you can't really start from scratch every game. meaning trying to think on your own in the opening.

Grandmasters tend to revert to opening tricks or traps, which may not work every time, but if they do they will yield a fast and easy win. Especially true for Bullet Matches.

Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Daniel Naroditsky all have opening traps ready

let's start with the current world champion @MagnusCarlsen

in this position 2Nf3 is the main move. 2Nc3 the Vienna is less common. 2Bc4 is interesting

But Magnus plays 2.d4!? which brings this position 2..ed4 3Qd4 Nc6 4Qe3

Why is Magnus playing this ? His idea is to develop the bishop on c1 and the knight on b1, and play 0-0-0. This is likely to bring kings on opposite wings, definitely not something you often see in the Spanish nor the Italian. This will surprise the 1..e5 player.

for instance he played the following line against Andrew Tang, losing the e4 pawn in the process.

1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qe3 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Bd2 O-O 7. O-O-O Re8
8. Qf4 Bxc3 9. Bxc3 Rxe4 10. Qg3 

As you can see, Magnus was quick to finish off the attack

Now Magnus has used the same weapon against Alireza Firouzja

Not at the FIDE World Rapid but in an online game.

in this game, Alireza played 10..d5 which is better than 10..d6. But still Magnus won easily. It is very difficult to defend in a short time control game. And with this 2.d4 move ( which is probably dubious), Magnus achieves a position with attacking chances he is familiar with.

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Now I would like to showcase a few examples with 1.d4

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bf4 a6 

a specialty from O. Bortnyk. a very dangerous bullet and blitz player.

In this game, he is facing @DanielNarodistky, another top player on this site (as well on the other site), and used this Jobava London variation with success 

and lets show the final position

as you can see Black cannot avoid to lose the bishop on d6 or the queen on a3.

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now a future GM Minh Le (and for a long time the unofficial strongest IM in the world ) @wonderfultime

First a miniature against 1d4 f5

But Minh Le is known to play the London system and also the Torre Attack, i.e following 1.d4 with either Bf4 or Bg5 quickly. He prefers to put a pawn on c3 rather than Nc3 (Jobava London).

and here is the key position Minh Le achieved

this is a winning position on move 15 against IM Eric Rosen, who plays himself the London System ! Chances are this trap will work against many opponents !

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now some of you may have noticed I used games played online 'elsewhere'. But the same players use these opening traps on chess.com all the time. And we may even expect Magnus to play more on chess.com since chess24 (part of play magnus group) and chess.com are apparently in the process of merging.

To prove my point, lets see a great win from @wonderfultime aka Minh Le in the London System

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and @Hikaru ?

and also this video where he broke the world record for consecutive bullet wins