I hate 1.e4....

I have been playing chess for a long time now, but I can say I never adopt an opening system for more than a week or two...  I can say for the first time in my entire life I have played two openings past that period (Fajarowicz Gambit and Halloween Gambit) with amazing results... It is hard to lose with these openings...  But my record as Black playing against 1.e4 now is down to 8%!  I am being murdered, and this is because I have no sharp, trappy line to play against it.  I try to play mainline, theoretical wonderlands and get slaughtered.  So my question:  Does anyone have a sharp, trappy defence against 1.e4 that gets good results?  I seriously need one.

Thanks for any comments

No

You could try the latvian gambit, or the schlieman against the ruy lopez.

There's no "wonder opening" that will win itself, no matter what is played. After experimenting a lot with different openings here, I found that I still have the highest success rate with 1. ... e5, so this is what I play in serious tournaments solely.

If you are looking for a "sharp" opening vs. 1. e4, maybe you should play the Sicilian?

Why not try something like the Winawer?

I would say your problem might be that you need a sharp, trappy line to begin with in order to have any chance of success. Rather than try to find one, why not try and fix the problems with your play that consistently lead to disaster in the mid- and endgame?

+1

The Scandinavian - 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5. No traps, but if you're FULLY booked up, and 50% of your opponents are not in this line,  you should be able to improve from 8% to maybe 30% or more.

GM Boris Alterman teaches the Latvian Gambit over at ICC, so I figure, if a GM is teaching it as part of his series on gambits, it can't be all that bad for Black, even if it does have a bad reputation.

Lol I always play e4. Just don't play me for advice! :D as much as i want to, though. But i am available for lessons against this, if you would like. yOu can challenge me to an unrated game. c5 (sicilian) d5 (scandinavian) c6(caro-kann) e5 (king's pawn) or e6 (french) are all good openings and i can help.

I suspect your real problem is never sticking with an opening system for more than a week or two.  As a result, you get the best results with trappy, marginally sound, offbeat openings that your opponents don't know well.  If you play this sort of openings against more experienced players than you typically do on Chess.com your results will suffer (more experienced players are more likely to have experience with offbeat openings).  My advice would be to pick a mainline black opening vs. e4 that grandmasters play regularly and stick with at for at least sixth months (mainlines in one of the following: Sicilian, e5, CaroKann, French, Pirc, Alekhine, Scandinavian, Modern). Kasparov famously said all of these mainline defenses are sound, and your choice comes down to preference.  At first there will be a learning curve as you learn the ideas and theory of the opening, but after a month of playing it your results will vastly improve with black.  The only reason I speak so confidently is I had a similar problem in the past.    

I like the Scandinavian with NF6.  You can also try E5 and keep an eye out for tactics!

To be honest, your losses have nothing to do with the opening you are playing. I would recommend going over tactics and famous games. However, if you would like to avoid theory I would definitely recommend the Scandinavian. It results in very similar positions regardless of what white plays and allows for fairly simple middlegame positions with lots of play.

I agree with the opinion that mostly your losses are not due to opening; but mostly because of your middle game. Otherwise, you play openings, which you don't really understand.

        Stick to something more time and practice it well; I advice Petrov & CaroKan if you would try it a good shoot.

 Horse-crap... lol.. my baseball coach used to use that to describe opposing teams.  I agree though...  Most lessons go over worst move possibilties... which makes it hard to take the opening seriously

Play the Dragon

I love e4

especially when black follows up with e5

I don`t understand how someone can hate e4 :S ...

e4 is the only opening where you play open games and only opening where you have many other responces , all other openings ... d4, c4 , reti , lead to closed positions and master manouvers ... I like those close positions but i also love open games where there are so many sacrifices in e4. That`s why it will always be my favourite

Looking at your stats, it looks like you play lots of Blitz and Bullet, and yor rating goes way down on Standard time controls.  You are asking for a "sharp, trappy" opening.  It sounds like your style is based on creating enormous tactical complications in fast games.  Kind of a one trick pony, and while I am not saying that you couldn't kick my butt at blitz, it sounds like you fail horribly (8% victory) when you run into someone who goes for classical development and doesn't fall for the tricks.

The very unfortunate news is that you probably should be working on fundamentals rather than cheap shot chess that doesn't work when people have more time to think or just go for a solid, classical development scheme.  If you don't you are going to be stuck being a gimmick blitz player who can't handle someone who just builds up a sound control of the center and developes instead of the typical blitz "attack like your hair is on fire" methods.

You said a mouthful there.  For a guy like me whose weakness is tactics, that is why I have never been a 1. e4 player mainly.  But I am now working on that, so hopefully I will have 1. e4 in my repertoire in the near future as a main event, alongside of 1. f4. 

 I avoided the e4 openings for a long time because I felt I was tactically weak and didn't like alot of early fireworks in my games.  I played 1d4 almost exclusively, however.  After a sort of forced hiatus from a health crisis, however, i have been playing a few correspondence games and opening e4 with white, to force myself to confront my discomfort with those positions.  I think e4 is great "training" for a player, its logical, classical development, center control, kingside attacks, etc, real meat and potatoes chess.  I think everyone, whatever they eventually settle into for a repertoire, should play the e pawn openings from both sides of the board.

Sofa, that is where I am right now.  I am waiting on a 1.e4 book to begin my initiation!