Question for a beginner here

Sort:
protanly

As someone who's known the rules for chess for quite some years, but only recently started playing much more, I'd classify myself as a beginner. I've recently been starting with d4 over e4 when playing as white as I generally like many of the possible openings out of it such as the queen's gambit and whatnot. My question in particular is to times when I am playing white.

 

What I want to ask for the sake of my curiosity, are there any traps that I could learn about and get under my belt that I could possibly utilize after the d4 opening. Specifically, I'm looking for traps that aren't gimmicky like the 4 move checkmate, and still allow for normal development (Meaning that should my opponent see the possibility for said trap, I could simply abort the attempt at it, and continue developing without being worse off.)

 

I guess the TL;DR is that I want to know if there's traps that are known out of the d4 opening that don't require basing my entire opening on them, such that I could abort the attempt at anytime and still have normal development going. Mainly looking for lesser known rather than famous ones I can simply look up myself.

 

I don't expect something like this to magically make me a good player, but It'd probably help in terms of playing a better d4 opening whenever I play.

ThrillerFan

Long story short, NO!  Learn "correct chess" instead of "trap chess", otherwise you will never be any good.  Only purpose for knowing traps is to watch out for cheap shots by your opponent.  Trying to execute cheap shot tricks will ultimate fail for you in the long run.

Traps should simply be known so as to avoid them.  Attempting to execute them typically means you are going out of your way to make a bad move just to see if your opponent will fall for something.  If he falls for it, great.  If not, your position is worse.  Not worth it!

So really the only traps you need to be aware of are those that are built into the opening itself.  A prime example when it comes to 1.d4 is the following:



u0110001101101000
ThrillerFan wrote:

Only purpose for knowing traps is to watch out for cheap shots by your opponent. Traps should simply be known so as to avoid them.

And also... to execute them. Black needs to know the trap you posted to be able to play 4...Nbd7 otherwise it just loses a pawn.

He's asking for 1.d4 openings that give black the opportunity to go really wrong without overtly playing for traps.

ThrillerFan
0110001101101000 wrote:
ThrillerFan wrote:

Only purpose for knowing traps is to watch out for cheap shots by your opponent. Traps should simply be known so as to avoid them.

And also... to execute them. Black needs to know the trap you posted to be able to play 4...Nbd7 otherwise it just loses a pawn.

He's asking for 1.d4 openings that give black the opportunity to go really wrong without overtly playing for traps.

And the answer is there are none.

You can play 2.c4 and go into main line openings.

You can play 2.Nf3 and go into various QP openings, like the Colle against an early ...d5 or Nf6/e6 (no good against Fianchetto Defenses), the Torre against Nf6/e6 or Nf6/g6 (no good against early ...d5), Veresov (as long as Black doesn't go Benoni or Modern defense on you), Trompowsky (against 1...Nf6), or the London System.

But the moment you start going for trap lines, like 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4?! Nxg4 3.e4 d6 4.Be2 Nf6 5.Nc3, if Black knows what he is doing in this gambit, White's worse.  So why play the dubious 2...g4?! in the first place?  Clearly because the line is trappy, but it's bad if Black knows it!

Learn to play correct chess in the first place because once you get past playing the patzers and are over say, 1800, your opponents won't be dumb clowns that fall for such garbage!

The_Ghostess_Lola

....and don't 4get all your zaps & zingers too. There's abuncha them.

protanly

I guess there wouldn't be a "perfect" trap in a sense that's completely safe to try out, but my question was more for curiosities sake to see if such a thing was even possible, and to be honest I figured as much. Thanks anyways.

 

My other question is as to how I'm playing the Queen's gambit accepted. Generally after the gambit is accepted, I am currently playing e3 which allows for the bishop to recapture the pawn on the next move. I know this is well known, but curious to see if there's a generally accepted "better" move or possibly even an equally accepted alternate to e3.

u0110001101101000
ThrillerFan wrote:
0110001101101000 wrote:
ThrillerFan wrote:

Only purpose for knowing traps is to watch out for cheap shots by your opponent. Traps should simply be known so as to avoid them.

And also... to execute them. Black needs to know the trap you posted to be able to play 4...Nbd7 otherwise it just loses a pawn.

He's asking for 1.d4 openings that give black the opportunity to go really wrong without overtly playing for traps.

And the answer is there are none.

You can play 2.c4 and go into main line openings.

You can play 2.Nf3 and go into various QP openings, like the Colle against an early ...d5 or Nf6/e6 (no good against Fianchetto Defenses), the Torre against Nf6/e6 or Nf6/g6 (no good against early ...d5), Veresov (as long as Black doesn't go Benoni or Modern defense on you), Trompowsky (against 1...Nf6), or the London System.

But the moment you start going for trap lines, like 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4?! Nxg4 3.e4 d6 4.Be2 Nf6 5.Nc3, if Black knows what he is doing in this gambit, White's worse.  So why play the dubious 2...g4?! in the first place?  Clearly because the line is trappy, but it's bad if Black knows it!

Learn to play correct chess in the first place because once you get past playing the patzers and are over say, 1800, your opponents won't be dumb clowns that fall for such garbage!

But, for example, I believe you're familiar with the Cambridge Springs defense, and the associated elephant trap...

He's asking for reasonable openings that happen to also contain traps like that. It's extremely clear he's not asking for crap like 2.g4 or maybe you didn't finish reading the post, and stopped the moment you read the word "trap."

I'd offer something like the London or Torre... but that's not so much a trap as it is you can get a big attack if the opponent plays poorly... but it's not as easy as memorizing a single line, so I don't know that it would help @protanly much.

u0110001101101000

Queen's gambit accepted is a good example

 

I suppose @thrillerfan you think 2.c4 was a garbage move playing for traps...

u0110001101101000
protanly wrote:

I guess there wouldn't be a "perfect" trap in a sense that's completely safe to try out, but my question was more for curiosities sake to see if such a thing was even possible, and to be honest I figured as much. Thanks anyways.

 

My other question is as to how I'm playing the Queen's gambit accepted. Generally after the gambit is accepted, I am currently playing e3 which allows for the bishop to recapture the pawn on the next move. I know this is well known, but curious to see if there's a generally accepted "better" move or possibly even an equally accepted alternate to e3.

A lot of different 3rd moves are good. Nothing wrong with e3. You can also play Nf3, e4, or Nc3.

Playing Nf3 and waiting to attack the pawn may be a way to encourage your opponent to try to keep the pawn, and then they might fall into a bad position like the one I posted above. If not, that's fine, and you get a normal game.

Dark_Army
protanly wrote:

What I want to ask for the sake of my curiosity, are there any traps that I could learn about and get under my belt that I could possibly utilize after the d4 opening.

Figure out the name of at least one d4 opening system that you like to use and then go to YouTube or Google and do a search for the trap in that opening. There's traps out there. The more you know about the better.

TheAuthority

You should not be playing d4, always play e4 and play bullet chess. Are you playing any bullet chess? Play more.

protanly

I don't see why you see e4 as mandatory, and d4 as inferior. Even at my level, I see the sicilian played often against e4 which is a very strong defence by black when played properly. Maybe I'd play e4 more if 1. ... e5 was played more often, as that could lead to some fun openings, but aside from that, I generally get much more out of 1. d4

TheAuthority

protanly wrote:

I don't see why you see e4 as mandatory, and d4 as inferior. Even at my level, I see the sicilian played often against e4 which is a very strong defence by black when played properly. Maybe I'd play e4 more if 1. ... e5 was played more often, as that could lead to some fun openings, but aside from that, I generally get much more out of 1. d4

----

I didn't say it is inferior, just not my preference. So play d4, and play more bullet chess.

u0110001101101000

 

Speed chess is not the way to improve. Don't take my word for it, here are some quotes from world champions (and WC contenders) tongue.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Criticism

RussBell
0110001101101000 wrote:

 

Speed chess is not the way to improve. Don't take my word for it, here are some quotes from world champions (and WC contenders) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Criticism

Good advice..

RussBell

"700 Opening Traps" by Bill Wall (pdf)....

http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/permanent/700_Opening_Traps.pdf

book also available on Amazon etc...

TheAuthority

0110001101101000 wrote:

 

Speed chess is not the way to improve. Don't take my word for it, here are some quotes from world champions (and WC contenders) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Criticism

----

Magnus' quote made me laugh and is hardly a criticism.

Speed chess is not for everyone but look at it this way, you can spend an hour playing 2 games (yawn) or you can spend an hour gaining the experience of 30 games. And seriously...700 openings?!? Have fun with that.

I say don't waste time on traps or openings, study mating patterns, opening principles, limit your blunders, limit hanging pieces, etc....

And play lots of bullet.

Dark_Army

Trust me. Just find a d4 opening that you like and search online for tricks and traps in that opening.

oviciro

anybody knows how the points work? everytime i loose they take 10 or 11 points and when i win i only get 4 or 5points please advise

oviciro

anybody knows how the points work? everytime i loose they take 10 or 11 points and when i win i only get 4 or 5points please advise