Three London traps, seen from both sides of the board
The London System is a quiet opening, but it has traps that win material in the first ten moves. Here are three of them, each with its bait, its refutation and the signal that announces it, whether you play the London or face it.
Where London System traps come from
The London puts the same pieces on the same squares in almost every game, and that is what makes its traps work. Against a calm setup, it is easy to develop without looking for tactics; and the London player, who plays the same moves every game, can miss a piece left loose. The three traps below are the ones given free in our Lichess study; The London System in Twelve Lessons has ten.
Trap 1: the d1–h5 diagonal
The bait: in 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nc6 3.e3 Bg4??, the bishop comes out and attacks the queen. In many openings …Bg4 pins a knight on f3, but here no knight stands on f3 yet, and 3.e3 has opened the diagonal from d1 to h5: 4.Qxg4 simply takes the bishop.
A knight falls the same way on h5, after another move order: 1…Nf6 2.Bf4 d6 3.e3 Nh5?? 4.Qxh5. It goes to h5 to chase the f4 bishop, and lands on the open diagonal.
How not to fall for it. With Black, once White has played e3, do not leave a piece on g4 or h5 without a defender until a knight stands on f3. With White, look at g4 and h5 after each black move in the opening, before you go on with the setup: a free piece is easy to miss when you play the same moves every game.
Trap 2: …f6? against the knight on e5
The bait: in 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.Nbd2 Bd6 5.Ne5 c4 6.e3 f6?, Black chases the knight from e5. But …f6 opens the diagonal from h5 to the king on e8, and since the knight has left f3, 7.Qh5+! gets there at once.
Black has to block with 7…g6: the king cannot step aside, because on e7 or f8 it is mated by 8.Qf7#, the knight on e5 guarding f7. Then 8.Nxg6!, and after 8…hxg6 9.Qxh8, White has won a rook for the knight. Why it works: when the h-pawn takes on g6, the h-file opens from h5 to h8, where the rook was waiting. It is the same diagonal as in the first trap: with the pawn on e3 and the knight gone from f3 to e5, nothing blocks the road from d1 to h5.
How not to fall for it. With Black, castle first, or guard g6 with …Ne7, before you play …f6 against a knight on e5. With White, the signal is a king still on e8, …f6 just played, the d1–h5 diagonal open and only the h-pawn guarding g6: look at Qh5+.
Trap 3: the pawn fork on e5
The bait: in 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3 Bf5 4.c3 e6 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nd2 Nxe5?, Black removes the knight from e5. Taking back with the bishop, 8.Bxe5, would win nothing: Stockfish even prefers Black after it. The right recapture is 8.dxe5!, with the pawn: from e5 it attacks the bishop on d6 and the knight on f6 at once.
One of the two pieces falls, and White wins a piece for a pawn. Taking the pawn does not help, because the f4 bishop guards e5: after 8…Bxe5 9.Bxe5, Black has lost the bishop. Our article on the fork shows this pawn fork beside the knight and queen forks.
How not to fall for it. With Black, before you take on e5 with a knight, look at d6 and f6: a pawn arriving on e5 would hit both. Nothing forced the capture, and quiet moves such as 7…h6 or 7…Qe7 keep the balance, according to Stockfish. With White, when Black takes on e5 and has pieces on d6 and f6, take back with the d-pawn.
The seven other traps, in the book
Lesson 12 of The London System in Twelve Lessons gathers ten traps from real games, each with the bait, the refutation and how to avoid it. The first three are the ones above. The other seven are:
- The queen check on a4
- The check in between
- The skewer on the eighth rank
- The Greek gift that fails
- …Qh4+ after f2–f3
- The poisoned b7 pawn
- …Qa5+ and the bishop on b5
Of these seven, the first three catch Black, like the traps above. The last four catch White, and the London player needs to know them just as well.
How to make these traps your own
The three traps have one thing in common: each punishes a natural move played without a look at the whole board, a bishop developed onto an open diagonal, a pawn push that opens the king’s diagonal, a capture that lets a pawn in. And each time, White’s answer is a check or a capture: the moves to look at first.
A trap you have only read about is easy to miss at the board. Set up each one, play it from both sides, and learn the signal that announces it:
- After e3, the d1–h5 diagonal is open until a knight comes to f3: look at g4 and h5.
- King on e8 and …f6: look for Qh5+.
- Black takes your e5 knight with a knight: take back with the d-pawn when the pawn will attack two pieces.
Then train the tactics behind them, hanging pieces and forks above all, with puzzles from real games such as 300 Chess Puzzles. The free Lichess study shows these three traps with the first three lessons of the book and six exercises, and our guide on how to play the London System explains the setup they come from.