Shortlisted for the English Chess Federation 2008 Book-of-the-Year Award!

Every chess player has gone through the experience of a game coming to an end before it ever really started. The reason is often one of the ubiquitous opening traps, which to the victim look quite ‘normal’ moves – a piece is developed, something is captured, or a threat is set up and parried.

The reply, for the most part an unusual one and therefore totally unexpected, then almost inevitably leads to a rapid win for the ‘trapper’. The two internationally recognised grandmaster authors – Rainer Knaak is considered an expert on the openings, and Karsten Müller on the endgame – therefore propose two main objectives:

• the student should master the traps in the openings he plays, in order to avoid disasters;
• but he can also systematically try to expand his opening repertoire, in order himself to set traps.

222 Opening Traps - after 1.e4  contains all the important openings after 1.e4, such as the Italian, French, Spanish, Sicilian etc., as well as introductory texts with their typical motifs, with which one should be familiar. In this way, as a welcome side effect, the reader is guaranteed to improve his combinative skill.

222 Opening Traps - after 1.d4 cover those traps which can be expected after the double advance of the white d-pawn, such as the Queen’s Gambit or the King’s Indian Defence, there are introductory texts with the most typical trap motifs, of which you should be aware.

From the Judges' Report of the ECF Book-of-the-Year Award:
"Much better organised than previous works of this type as the authors endeavour, not only to show the nasty accidents that can arise, but also set them in a strategic and tactical context so that the reader improves his opening knowledge as he goes along."