Have you seen this "Empty Fishing Pole" trick?

Not bad. I'm open to alternative names, although "chumming" sounds like a situation where a player would leave *two* pieces of bait hanging around!

Very good. Lol.

I had only enough time this morning to look up a couple positions in a database, positions that people posted above.

The situation is largely the same: the "Empty Fishing Pole" response (P-R4) is always #2 in popularity, and ignoring the bishop is the preferred response.

However, in the French Defense example trading bishops is preferred over biffing the bishop, and in the Dutch Defense example there is no challenging bishop, so the situation is a little different in that trading bishops is not an option.

That means there are different *types* of "Empty Fishing Poles." (Oh my God, the complexity! I can't handle it!)

Black's responses:

6...a6 {#1 pop. w 51%. Ignore the bishop.}

6...Bxg5 {#2 pop. w 46%. Trade bishops.}

6...c5 {#3 pop. w 49%. Ignore the bishop.}

6...h6 {#4 pop. w 51%. Biff the bishop.}

White's responses:

6. g3 {#1 pop. n 47%. Ignore the bishop.}

6. a3 {#2 pop. b 38%. Biff the bishop.}

6. Bg5 {#3 pop. wn 36%. Ignore the bishop.}

6. e3 {#4 pop. n 40%. Ignore the bishop.}

6. Bd2 {#5 pop. n 75%. Ignore the bishop.}

On the last one I like Bd2 best as well. I always started looking for ways to get rid of any piece on my side of the board however. I never liked my opponents pieces setting up camp on the 4th rank if I was white, nor the 5th rank if I was black. If you ignore them, they can often times build a strong attack against you.

Oh I was aware of the fishing pole trap mj, thanks, and yes there are some good vids on youtube about it.

Thanks. It took me some time to look this up in a database and to compare it to the similar game I posted. Your final position is indeed a baited Fishing Pole Trap, but I was unable to find any database games where ...h5 was the preferred move, and I didn't search further. Probably experts playing White already knows to avoid grabbing bait in that type of position.

My main question now is: What does a player do if his opponent starts setting up a Fishing Pole Trap and the attackee hasn't castled yet? Should he switch to castling on the other side to get away from the side being attacked, or just assume the attack will fizzle out and castle into the attack? I've begun studying the French Defense and Bogo-Indian Defense positions I posted, but I have no interesting results yet: In the Bogo variation White castles kingside, away from the attack, but then White usually castles kingside anyway, and in the French variation Black usually recaptures the bishop with his king (instead of his queen) after Bxe7 ...Kxe7, so Black doesn't castle at all in that line.