Greetings players and fellow patzers,
In the game below, finished earlier today, I thought I had an early chance to win a pawn and gain an advantage,
so imagine my enlightening surprise when Mr. Fritz tells me that I should have dropped a piece!
I'm sure someone will come along and tell me that this particular missed sequence isn't new and has happened many times(?)
Anyway I enjoyed the game no less 🙂
This is known as the Elephant Trap.
However, as Greenpawn will doubtless tell you, it's not a real trap at all.
See Thread 154164 (search for "Elephant" )
Also this blog:
http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogread.php?blogpostid=84
Originally posted by Fat LadyAh, thanks very much Fat Lady 🙂 (i'd love to be able to say that to someone in person!)
This is known as the Elephant Trap.
However, as Greenpawn will doubtless tell you, it's not a real trap at all.
See Thread 154164 (search for "Elephant" )
Also this blog:
http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogread.php?blogpostid=84
EDIT: I just noticed that I posted in that thread.... shows how much I pay attention to things, huh lol
It's not trap. 🙂
4....Nbd7 is a good move played by many strong players.
The fact there is a trick in there is coincidental.
(also a few Black have won the piece and gone onto lose - see below.)
To make a genuine trap out the same setting try 4...Bd6.
This is my opening trap and it's a genuine bad move hoping for a blunder.
The RHP player Grumms PM'd me to say he had caught someone with 4...Bd6
but, alas, went onto lose.
Originally posted by greenpawn34How is it not a trap? Just curious, it looks like a trap to me. 4...Bd6 looks like a swindle.
It's not trap. 🙂
4....Nbd7 is a good move played by many strong players.
The fact there is a trick in there is coincidental.
(also a few Black have won the piece and gone onto lose - see below.)
To make a genuine trap out the same setting try 4...Bd6.
This is my opening trap and it's a genuine bad move hoping for a blunder.
The RHP player Grumm ...[text shortened]... ay around. He has fallen into the trap.} 6... Nxd5 7. Bxd8 Bb4+ {Black has won his piece.}[/pgn]
Hi Mister Chess.
Swindle/Trap. It can be the same but IMO they differ.
I'll cut/paste the relevant bit that I posted in the thread Fat Lady gave.
The Oxford Companion to Chess has this to say about a trap.
They state there is no precise definition of a trap adding that
many masters would not class an incidental trap as a trap.
(4...Nbd7 in the above game is an incidental trap)
They call a move that I call a genuine trap (a risky bad move that works) a swindle.
A swindle to me is when you are lost and you set a trap that your opponent
falls into and you spin the game around.
Swindles differ from a genuine trap because when swindling the damage
has already been done. You are trying to get back into the game.
A genuine trap is the damage that can give you a lost game.
Indeed when the The Oxford Companion comes around to defining 'Swindle'
it agress with me.
"A trap by means of which a player who has a lost position avoids defeat."
(The Companion appears to be arguing with itself.)
-------------------------
In the so called Elephant Trap mentioned above Black is not in a lost position
nor is he setting a trap. He is developing a piece.
The plausible trap just happens to there, it is incidental.
4...Bd6 is a pure trap.
It is knowingly playing a bad move to set a trap when you have no need to.
It is played to trap an unsuspecting opponent into making a bad move.
If the player plays correctly against this move he will win a sound centre pawn.
A swindle/cheapo.
Is something you try when you are lost and you need to take desperate steps.
Correct Habeascorp.
Greed. But in the case the greed is simply miscalculation, encouraged
by material gain and an advantage in a game fo chess.
All seasoned players would not even look at trying to nick the d-pawn after 4...Nd7.
They know the trick is there.
But 4...Bd6. 'Never seen that before...is it a mistake?....."
So you have them thinking in the opening instead of remembering.
Once you have a human thinking for themselves in any situation then anything can happen.
Add that to the fact that trap involves the Bishop moving twice (from d6 and
again to b4+ to spring the trap), double piece and pawn moves are often missed.
You have makings of a very plausible trap.
Try it for a laugh in blitz. It has two out two victims that I know of.
(though one lost) and there is a third but the player here....
....never played 4...Bd6 intending a trap because here he did not play 6...Nxd5. (doh!)
"Once you have a human thinking for themselves in any situation then anything can happen."
Originally posted by greenpawn34Hi greenpawn, I tend to agree that for it to be a trap there should be some form of refutation, even if the concession is just time or a misplaced piece. I think "pitfall" is a good word for incidental traps that come about after normal moves. The problem is that Horowitz and Reinfeld wrote a book called Chess Traps, Pitfalls, and Swindles where they used "trap" to mean an incidental trap and "pitfall" to mean a trap that was played for, although they don't seem to require it to involve a concession if the other player doesn't fall for it.
Hi Mister Chess.
Swindle/Trap. It can be the same but IMO they differ.
I'll cut/paste the relevant bit that I posted in the thread Fat Lady gave.
[b]The Oxford Companion to Chess has this to say about a trap.
They state there is no precise definition of a trap adding that
many masters would not class an incidental trap as a trap. ...[text shortened]...
A swindle/cheapo.
Is something you try when you are lost and you need to take desperate steps.[/b]