Practical Traps with 1.e4

By Steve Goldberg

Tricks & Traps, Vol. 1, by GM Nigel Davies (DVD), ChessBase 2010; Playing Time approximately four hours.

In thirty-one video segments, Davies looks for opening traps that have at least a reasonable chance of surprising your opponent. He does point out a few tricks that may work against beginning players, but, as he notes, opening surprises need to be more sophisticated as the playing level of the opposition increases.

Many of the examples shown here include games involving such names as Fischer, Kasparov, Capablanca, and the like. So the viewer can be assured that Davies doesn't select openings so offbeat that they are unlikely to ever come into play. He has put together a reasonably practical set of traps to spring on unsuspecting opponents.

A wide variety of openings are utilized for this presentation, including the Ruy Lopez, Pirc, Italian Game, Caro-Kann, Sicilian, and French, among others. Davies also spends three segments on the Fried Liver Attack (actually, two on the Fried Liver, one on the Lolli), popular with scholastic players.

The following game illustrates a frequent theme of Davies. A seemingly minor change from a normal variation goes unappreciated by the opponent, and … the trap is sprung!

This game involves the Two Knights variation of the Caro-Kann, but as Davies notes, "If Black thinks it's a regular Caro-Kann, he can end up in a heap of trouble." Davies's comments are included.

Davies mentions that an acquaintance of his has used this line for years at the club level with tremendous success, "Because so many people don't know the difference between the line in this game and the main line Caro-Kann. They think the ‘3…dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5' line is ok, when it definitely is not."

I searched my database for the position after 7…Bh7 and found nearly 200 such games, including many players rated above 2000 as black. One can only imagine how often such a position occurs among lesser players, although, of course, not everyone will be fooled by the comparison with the main line Caro-Kann since not everyone will know the main line to begin with. But this is the type of "trick" that Davies presents in this DVD – one that an enterprising player can easily spring once in awhile.

Another example comes from what Davies calls the Noah's Ark Trap in the Ruy Lopez:

This trap still snares many players, and if you search your database for the position after …c5, you'll see some good players as white having fallen into this. I found fifty-five such games, including one in which the black player, rated 2125, apparently failed to see the …c4 move (or was just interested in a quick draw). There were a number of 2000+ players as white that showed up in this database search.

"The poison behind these moves," Davies says, "is that nothing seems unnatural for White. There's nothing artificial looking about what Black's trying to do. He's played a series of perfectly natural moves."

And that's the best and sneakiest kind of chess trick.

As always, Nigel Davies has a pleasant demeanor, a clear voice, and has put together a compelling array of traps, particularly suited to the club or scholastic player looking for a couple surprises to carry around in his back pocket. I'm sure this DVD will put a twinkle in the eyes of a number of players, young and old.

My assessment of this product: Good (four out of six stars)

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• Steven B. Dowd's review in PDF

Sampler from Practical Traps with 1.e4 by Nigel Davies