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.

This first volume 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.

Content:
006 Foreword

007 Introduction

010 Symbols

011 1 Semi-Open Games - Minor Variations

017 2 Alekhine Defence

022 3 Pirc and Modern Defences

024 4 Caro-Kann Defence

024 4.1 Typical motifs in the Caro-Kann

027 4.2 Traps in the Caro-Kann

032 5 Sicilian Defence

032 5.1 Typical motifs in the Sicilian

038 5.2 Traps in the Sicilian

077 6 French Defence

077 6.1 Typical Motifs in the French

084 6.2 Traps in the French

100 7 Open Games - Minor Variations

123 8 Italian Opening

123 8.1 Typical motifs in the Giuoco Piano and the Two Knights Defence

127 8.2 Traps in the Giuoco Piano and Two Knights Defence

137 9 Ruy Lopez

137 9.1 Typical motifs in the Ruy Lopez

139 9.2 Traps in the Ruy Lopez

154 Appendix

154 Index of Sources

155 Index of Openings

156 Index of Names

158 Index of Games