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Hello everybody! It's jrobi! I wanted to go over a nice little trap
in the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit lines, and it is called the Halosar
Trap. And I think you will have a lot of fun with this trap, even if you
are not regularly a D4 player. So I am just going to dive right into it
here. So, as white we are going to open up with pawn to D4. And if
black plays pawn to D5, this is going to let us get into the
Blackmar-Diemer Gambit lines by thrusting our own pawn forward now to E4.
So we are offering this pawn up here on E4, and there is not really a
way that we are going to be able to get it back right away. So black,
nine times out of ten, is just going to capture that pawn. And from
this position we are going to play our knight up now to C3, so we are
going to attack it. Now black is going to do a development move to
defend that pawn by playing Knight up to F6. And we are going to push
our F pawn up now to F3. Black will capture. And generally speaking, in
the main lines, the knight would take here on F3. But, for the
trapping lines we are going to play Queen takes on F3. Now what this
is doing of course is it is leaving our pawn hanging here on D4. And
we actually want black to come and capture that pawn, which it
probably will do. So when black comes down to take that pawn, we are
going to develop our bishop now to E3, we are going to kick that Queen
away! And the Queen is going to go over to B4, attacking the
undefended pawn here on B2, and it is also pinning down the Knight to
the King - so it's a nice little move that black will probably find
relatively easily, and play that. And from this position here, we are
going to castle. Now this probably looks a little dubious because by
castling we are giving black the option to bring the bishop down now
to G4, and that is going to skewer our Queen and our rook! But that
is exactly what we want black to play, so if black does play that
strong looking move with Bishop to G4, black has just unleashed the
flood gates for the Halosar Trap! Because after this, we can play a
very nice move, Knight to B5! And just take a look at the position that this creates!
First of all we have this monstrous Rook sitting on D1,
bearing down all along the D-file, hemming in the black King here on
E8. We have our Bishop on F1 defending the Knight here, and of course
this Knight is threatening checkmate in one move by capturing the pawn
on C7! So black has to do something about this. Now black can't just
capture the Queen. Let's say that black says okay, well I am just going to
get this piece off because my Bishop is attacking your Queen! Well
that is not a problem because we get to take the Queen with check! So
that means our Queen is going to be able to get to safety, and black
just drops a Queen! So there is a nice little subtle trap there that
your opponent might fall into. But if your opponent doesn't fall into
that, probably what your opponent's going to play in this position is
Knight to A6. Now, Knight to A6 of course is defending the pawn here
on C7, so what are we going to play in this position? Well from here
we are going to snag up the pawn on B7, we are attacking the rook here
on A8 and we are also attacking the Knight here on A6. And once again
black has got some big decisions to make! If, for example, black
moves the rook over to C8 because the rook is defended by the Bishop,
he just drops a piece on A6 and we are going to be fine because our
rook cannot be taken because if black comes down to take our rook, we
just capture the rook here and it is game over! So black definitely
cannot play that! So facing this position what black will probably
play is something like Queen to E4, wanting to get the Queens off the
table. But from here we are just going to continue now Queen takes
Knight on A6, and when black takes our Bishop with check here on E3,
we just need to swing our king over to safety on B1. And of course
the beauty of the position is that we are still threatening checkmate
with this Knight here sitting on B5 taking the pawn on C7! So black
has to do something about that, so black will move its Queen over now to
C5 to defend that pawn, and we are simply going to develop our Knight
now to F3, and what we are doing is we are taking away this Bishop's scope to
attack our rook on D1. Now black has another threat in this position,
B7 is a monstrous square! If we can get our Queen onto B7, well we can
capture with check and then win the Queen! So from here black has to
defend against that, maybe rook to B8 to take away this square from
the Queen, and we are going to win the A7 pawn in this position by
capturing with our Knight. Play could continue as follows, black can
play Queen over now to B6. We are just going to trade the Queens off
now, and we are sitting pretty here with the passed pawn once we hit
the check here on B5! So we got a passed pawn on the A-file, very
active pieces, we have connected rooks; black's position is just
garbage! So it is a very nice trapping line, with a lot of subtle
possibilities all along the way for other traps that could win the
opponents Queen, and cause the opponent to lose the game even quicker!
So I found that the Halosar Trap was definitely very interesting. I think, like
I said at the beginning, you are going to have a lot of fun with this
whether you play D4 or not as your opening move. Especially in your
blitz games, you know just try it out and see what you can make
happen! So take care, hope you have a great New Year, and we will see
you next time!