Noah’s Ark Trap is not just an opening trap. The name is used for a lot of openings in which the white bishop is trapped on b3 by black pawns. Most of the games that contain this trap can be found in the Ruy Lopez.
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( I start with this trap in the Sicilian defence since this variation very clearly demonstrates the trap 1...c5 2.Bb5 Not a very good move. 2...a6 3.Ba4 ( 3.Bc4 is better, but also makes it very clear that White should not have played Bb5 in the first place. ) 3… b5 4.Bb3 c4 and Black wins the bishop like in Widmer – Moheni, 1982. )
( and even in The Pirc and other openings the trap can be found 1...d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be3 c6 6.Qd2 Nbd7 7.O-O-O Qc7 8.Bc4 b5 9.Bb3 h6 10.h4 a6 11.Nh2 Bb7 12.f4 e6 13.Nf3 O-O-O 14.d5 exd5 15.exd5 c5 16.Rhg1 c4 like in Riezu – Rodrigo, 2003. )
4.Ba4 d6 5.d4?! b5 6.Bb3 Nxd4 7.Nxd4 exd4 8.Qxd4?? c5 9.Qc3 ( 9.Qd5 doesn’t help either 9...Be6 10.Qc6+ Bd7 11.Qd5 c4 and the white Bishop is trapped. ) 9… c4 like in Bruned Segura Mario ( 2255 ) — Duran Albareda Xavier ( 2290 ) , 1999. 0-1
More chess lessons? The next lesson in this series is about the game Morphy – Isouard (1958).
December 18th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I’m sorry, but your analysis as “1…c5 2.Bb5 Not a very good move.” is incorrect. Just because you believe it’s not, or that many play the game wrong from that point, does not make it a bad move. In fact, even 5.d4 was not a bad move. The bad move was move 8, Qxd4, and that is it. Nothing dictates that white must take back right away, playing a5 would be a valid line of play eventually leading to a resume in equal material, with white leading on development for your greed of trying to take an easy win, playing a trap, and white not falling for it.
December 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
@ GMNightmare
I agree with most of your comment, but I still shouldn’t play 2.Bb5, because I think that White has better moves. I don’t consider this move as a blunder after which the game will be lost. A blunder will be indicated by two question marks as you can find after the 8.Qxd4 move. I even don’t consider it as a bad move (indicated by a ?) or as a dubious move (?!), but I still advice to play other moves.
The main purpose of this article was to show some examples of Noah’s Ark Trap in different openings.
March 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
i completely agree, its not a matter of bad moves, its the strategy. QxD4 is enabling black to trap that pawn. the best move for white there would be Bd5. it takes away blacks ability to trap and puts pressure on blacks rook and eventually his queen.