Sicilian Najdorf - a Deadly trap for intermediate players

Hello guys,

If you've ever played the Sicilian Najdorf before, you probably wondered whether or not this variation contains lethal traps that are easy to learn and implement during games. Lately I've learnt a good trap in the Sicilian Najdorf, which is well known among strong players (1700+), and yet, many intermediate player are not aware of it at all.

The trap that I'm going to show you in this post is NOT rare. If you've played hundreds of chess games, you probably got the following position a few times. This is the position in which the trap can be executed:

In one of my games, my opponent was rated ~1590 and he/she was totally crushed by this trap. I got the above position after the following moves: 

1. e4 c5

2. Nf3 d6

3. d4 cxd4

4. Nxd4 Nf6

5. Nc3 a6

6. Bc4 b5

7. Bb3 e6

8. Qf3 Bb7

9. Bg5 Be7

But of course, there are other ways to get the above position. Let's talk about the critical position and the deadly trap!

The trap works like a charm, iff the following conditions are met:

1. White has a light-square bishop on either b3 or c4 that attacks a black pawn on e6, and that pawn is not protected by black's light-square bishop.

IMPORTANT:  There is a good technique that can help you meet the first condition. If you have the following position:

Simply play the move Qf3! and force your opponent to play Bb7, so that the bishop is no longer protecting the e6 square.

2. Black's dark-square bishop moved from f8 to e7 in order to remove the pin that exists on the f6 Knight. For example:

3. White has a knight on d4 (it's very common in the Sicilian)

The Trap

The trap looks like this:

The Idea behind the trap: White sacrifices his bishop for 3 pawns, and Black loses the castling right! This is a great compensation for losing a bishop. White achieves a significant advantage very early in the middle game.

In my last game, my 1590 rated opponent made a big blunder and lost the game immediately:

However, he would probably lose anyway, because of this deadly trap.

I hope you liked the trap and learnt something.

Thanks for reading! 

isn't this the Nadjorf transposing into the scheveningen variation of the Sicilian? i know it's the main line after Bb3 but still isn't the Nadjorf. very good though anyway.

This is a pretty common idea in these kinds of positions with uncastled black king and the Qd8-pe6-pf7 structure. Be careful with it though; after 10. Bxe6 0-0! 11. [Some bishop retreat] b4 and 12... Nxe4, black regains the pawn and, given that your king is uncastled as well, you are running into some issues yourself. The position is very sharp, and while white definitely has an advantage, the game is faaaar from over.

I was thinking the same thing...castle after Bxe6.

Thank you!

I never get the B knight earlier, but I've heard about that variation. It is called the "closed Sicilian" and it was Bobby Fischer's favorite opening.

Interesting idea! I've never analyzed the variation that you mentioned. I was thinking about it a little bit.

What if the bishop retreats to a square from which it defends the e4 pawn?

For example:

10. Bxe6 0-0!

11. Bf5 d4

12. Nce2

It turns out that black lost a pawn for nothing...

I'm not sure about that. ...g7-g6 is in the air, the e4 pawn is very weak, the Bb7 is very well placed etc. Black certainly has very decent compensation, it's by no means 'a pawn for nothing'

I like it! I tend to vastly prefer 3 pawns to a minor piece...even if the opponent can still castle...if you are any kind of an endgame player the pawns usually work out much better....I guess I'm bias, look at my name.