Restless Knights
The Trap
Think of the trap as "checkmating" one of your opponent's pieces, just not the king. Checkmate, as we know, is when the king can't avoid being captured on the next move. A trap is when a queen, rook, knight or bishop suffers the same fate. Below you have two examples and then fifteen puzzles, where your mission is to find which piece you can trap. The first few puzzles should be fairly easy, but then things gets more complicated... On the right side of the board you will see a number (usually the number 1), followed by a dot or three dots, and a question mark. If you see one dot, that means it's White to move, if the dots are three, that means it's Black to move.
Tips for using the board below: If you tap the f3-square, that'll take you to the next game. C3 will take you back to the previous one. If you tap e7, that will flip the board. Note that once you've flipped the board, the functions don't flip, so e7 becomes d2, f3 becomes c6 and c3 becomes f6. Many more squares have functions, I'll let you discover them for yourself if you want to.
Example 1a. Umbik vs. Far far away.
In this 2012 internet game between Umbik and Far far away, White played 29.g4? Instead of retreating with the knight, Black played the counter-attacking 29...g6!, trapping the queen.
Example 1b. Umbik vs. Far far away after 29...g6!
Example 2a. Guest vs Smári.
Example 2b. Guest vs. Smári after 10...Nc6.
In this 2008 internet game between a guest (on Playchess.com) and myself, I now laid a trap that my opponent didn't see coming. I played 9...Nfd7! to cover the b6-square, and perhaps making White think that I'm relocating the knight to c5. He played 10.f4?, falling right into the trap. After 10...Nc6 (a nice developing move as well) the white queen is trapped ("mated") in the centre.