Objectively, the value of a trap will be different for different ratings. A player might be too good to fall for something, but also a player might be too bad!
In one tournament game I played this 800 rated kid. I played a tricky opening, and he did better than most of my opponents... because he completely ignored my moves and just developed his pieces (lol). I couldn't trap him because he wasn't good enough to fall for it!
#1
How much is it winning by? 0 points: - winning is winning, there is no bonus for more winning
How often will opponents fall into it? - 0 points, you cannot tell, it depends on your opponent
How does it hold up for different ratings? - 0 points, you cannot tell, it depends on your opponent
If they don’t fall into it, how is the position? - 100 points. This is the key question.
If they lose when they fall into it, but you lose when they do not fall into it, then it is bad.
Weaker opponents are more likely to fall into it, but you probably would beat them anyway. Stronger players are less likely to fall into it, so you hand them a free win.
For once I actually agree with tygxc, by far the most important criteria is how does the position hold up if they don't fall into it.
I'll slightly quibble that everything else is worth 0 points. Winning may be winning, but unless you're stockfish converting a larger advantage is easier. If a trap works on a large number of your opponents at your rating range than that does make it useful to you.
That said traps that leave you in bad positions or even just ok positions that were worse than what you would have if you played more solidly if they don't fall into it are not worth it. In the long run they hurt your chess.
Objectively, the value of a trap will be different for different ratings. A player might be too good to fall for something, but also a player might be too bad!
In one tournament game I played this 800 rated kid. I played a tricky opening, and he did better than most of my opponents... because he completely ignored my moves and just developed his pieces (lol). I couldn't trap him because he wasn't good enough to fall for it!
oh lower rated players drive me nuts!!!! i'm positionally stupid, so 1200s get me so positionally confused, trying to lock onto a target, or at least stay "in book" that i wind up tripping all over myself and unable to coordinate. i find higher rated plays not only more predictable, but less aggressive and likely to trip me up positionally.
as to traps, why not just go for body count? a brilliant trap that 1 person falls for vs a mundane one a million people have fallen for? sounds like the winner to me... the scalp claiming grandmaster... on every corner.
the only two i know are the mammoth trap in the caveman carokann and the siberian (queen) trap, but playing Nd5 instead of Qe2 solves that one
A few days ago I had a Youtube video idea for ranking the top 100 opening traps from worst to best. I spent that time compiling a list of 100 very common chess traps, but I've run into a problem I have no clue on how to solve.
I realize that we clearly know which chess traps are the "best" and much better than others, but how would I objectively rank any opening trap on a scale of 0-100? I came up with an idea to rank it as well as I know how, but I am having trouble on specifics like how much each part should weigh on the total, how to determine how common a trap is, etc.
The system I came up is as follows:
How much is it winning by? - Up to 10 points
How often will opponents fall into it? - Up to 50 points
How does it hold up for different ratings? - Up to 20 points
If they don’t fall into it, how is the position? - Up to 20 points
This totals to a hundred max and would work, but I want to get the best and most objective system possible. I'm not sure what numbers to tweak, if there's some other criteria I should have here, or something else I have no idea about. Any ideas or recommendations are much appreciated!