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Today, we look at an opening that you don’t often come across in tournaments. This may be because many amateurs may not know about this opening and professionals prefer to try something else against each other. One Joseph Blackburne allegedly used to play this against amateurs to his amusement in the late 1800s and hence the name. This is one of the openings that are openly called traps, the case in point being known as the Kostics Trap, after a master who seems to have played this in a major tournament (note, in 1912) that led to a seven move checkmate!
Yes, it is that cool.
The opening goes like this. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 – so far it is probably the most commonly played opening in online portals. Black’s third move in this gambit, however, is 3. … Nd4.
The response to this move would determine how this might turn out. A simple c3 would push the knight back or exchange for the white knight. Castling is another good defensive option in my opinion. However, if you are bent on attacking, Bxf7+ followed by Nxe5+ makes some sense, if you are one of those who prefer a much better position to a piece.
The trap, on the other hand, is the invite to take the e-pawn immediately. Considering it to be the opponent’s mistake, many might resort to 4. Nxe5. This would be followed by 4. … Qg5, attacking the g2 pawn (and hence the rook) as well as the ambitious knight at e5. In the Kostics game, a rook for a rook might have sounded like a good idea to his opponent and he went with Nxf7, seemingly attacking the Black Queen and the rook. It looks like this.
Advantage White?
Black, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about his rook at this stage…because there’s a win in the offing that he can go for in pure Gayle-ish style. It begins with Qxg2. White realized only at this stage that it would have been better to simply give up the knight and protect g2…because Qxh1 means the end of the game. White is forced to protect itself with Rf1. But wait, there’s white’s e-pawn taking a stroll with no security whatsoever! Q takes e4 check.
Uh oh…
White has two options. Block with the Queen at e2 and lose it to the knight or bring back the Bishop to e2, which leads to Nf3#.
Choked to Death.
Go on and try it out in your practice games before more people get wind of this. Chess is fun because of variations like these.
