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Let’s face it. For every Grandmaster who enjoys squeezing a win out of a Petroff Defence or an Exchange Slav, there are a hundred club players who rejoice over snookering someone again with the Blackburne-Shilling Gambit or that old trap in the Englund Gambit. There are far more books available on, say, the Blackmar Diemer Gambit, than the Catalan Opening. While it is true that long ago Gary Kasparov pronounced that “chess isn’t skittles,” for many of us pawnpushers it often is. Older chess players who enjoyed being tricky cut their teeth on Irving Chernev’s Winning Chess Traps (1946) and younger ones did so on Bruce Pandolfini’s two volumes of Chess Openings: Traps and Zaps (1989, 1993). Now comes Grandmaster Gary Lane with The Greatest Ever Chess Tricks and Traps. Six year-olds with their eyes on 2500 will, of course, “harrumph” the idea and go back to studying the latest Chess Informant – but I, for one, throw my hat in the air. Go, Gary! The popularity of opening traps is two-fold. Of course, it’s fun to win quickly and slyly. More important, sneaky play usually works only because the victim is persuaded to abandon common sense principles of play and take the bait. The Greatest Ever Chess Tricks and Traps is therefore a kind of a morality play in five chapters – plus Acknowledgements, and Introduction, an Index of Games and an Index of Openings. One can almost hear George C. Scott’s line from an old movie, that “you can’t cheat an honest man.” Sticking to your chess principles is a strong shield against temptation. Learning the tactical responses when you or your opponent doesn’t is particularly useful. As Grandmaster Lane admits, “even the very best players set up tricks and traps,” so his work will be of value to serious club players as well as those who like to play on the fringe. To help the reader along, Lane has graded each trick or trap that he presents according to its Surprise Value, its Risk, its Chance of Success, and its Reward. Thus Legall’s Mate – 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Bg4 4.Nc3 g6 5.Nxe5! Bxd1? 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5 checkmate – scores 8 (out of 10), 2, 7 and 9 respectively. That is compared, to, say, the Jerome Gambit – 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ – which scores a well-deserved 10, 10, 2 and 3. Lane’s analysis is objective (he gives the traps and their alternatives or refutations) and the history that he provides for the opening variations is a nice plus.
And,
face it, besides all of the practical reasons to acquire the book, one of
the top ones is: it’s a whole lot of fun!
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