The Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez is a very common opening used by nearly every serious chess player. If you want to become a better player, you need to know how to play this opening and the traps that come with it.
The picture above shows how the board state will look after the beginning of the Ruy Lopez opening. First white leads with e4 and black responds with e5. White then plays 2. Nf3, attacking the e5 pawn, and black defends with 2. Nf6. White attacks the defending black knight with 3. Bb5 and black counters with a6.
From here, any of a large variety of moves can be taken, but some of these moves can be punished, winning black or white some material. We will go over the Noah’s Ark trap, a way for black to gain a bishop.The trap begins when the white plays 4. Ba4. Black plays d6 in response. The trap hinges on white playing aggressively and moving its d pawn to d4.
Black reacts from here by playing b5, attacking the white bishop. White plays the only move possible to protect the bishop: Bb3. Black then takes the d4 pawn with its knight (Nxd4).
Now, white is forced to take the black knight to make up for losing a pawn, and so white plays Nxd4. Black responds by playing exd4. White is now often tempted to take the pawn to regain material and advantage, so it takes, playing Qx d4. Note: This is often seen in less experienced players, and advanced players use the loss of the pawn to develop their pieces.
The trap is almost sprung now, and black plays c5, attacking the white queen. White is forced to move its queen so it doesn’t lose it, and it can play any number of moves (it does not matter what it plays because the trap is unavoidable at this point). For our purposes, we will assume white plays Qd5
Black must now play bishop e6 (Be6) to allow its rook to be protected by the black queen. This also attacks the white queen, forcing it to either retreat or play Qc6 +, checking the black king. Black can protect by using Bd7.
It’s now obvious that the white queen has to retreat back to Qd5 and this allows us to play c4, finally trapping the white bishop. It may seem that there are a lot of things that must go exactly right, but in reality almost all the moves are forced. The only moves that white must make of its own free will is moving its pawn to d4 and playing Qxd4, both very early moves in the game.
Author: Priyanshu Alluri