Phony Benoni: <paladin at large> Not quite! If 11.Ng5: click for larger viewBlack wins a piece with 11...Nxe2+!, and 12.Qxe2 Bxg2 13.Kxg2 Qxg5, or 12.Kh1 Bxg2+ 13.Kxg2 Qxg5. In the Monticelli v. Prokes game, after <10.Ng5>  click for larger viewWhite has not castled, hence 10...Nxe2 is not check and White is free to play 11.Qxh7#. Believe me, I know this one far too well.
At the 1976 US Open in Fairfax, Virginia, I went to a nearby diner for lunch and pulled out a chess book to read. A waitress came up. "Oh, do you play chess? Another chess player left a book here a few days ago, and never came back. Would you like to have it?" As soon as I saw it was Irving Chernev's <Winning Chess Traps>, all thoughts of being noble and trying to track down the owner disappeared. So I took it back to my hotel room, and spent the afternoon browsing through it. Eventually, I ran across Trap #260, which was the Monticelli Trap. Not being a 1.d4 player I had never seen it before, but it made such an impression that I decided to try for it in that night's game. So we were bouncing along, heading right for the crucial position, until after <8...Nxc3>:  click for larger viewI triumphantly sprung the trap with 9.Ng5. Black (about 300 rating points above me) found 9...Nxe2+ 10.Kh1 Bxg2+, and I quickly headed back to the hotel to see what I had done wrong. I grabbed the book, flipped it open, and it went straight to Trap #265--which was the one I had just fallen for. |