Never say die!

The shortest decisive master game that wasn't a forfeit or protest is Z. Đorđević–M. Kovačević, Bela Crkva Open 1984, which went 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c6!? 3.e3?? Qa5+! (winning a bishop) and White resigned. In the 28 years since then, a number of other players have fallen into this trap. ChessBase's Mega Database 2013 shows 12 complete games with this line. Surprisingly, Black scored only 83.3%! He actually managed to lose the following game, letting his queen be trapped with 15...f6?? instead of saving it with 15...Qf6!

The moral of the story: "won games" don't win themselves! When you get a winning position, play accurately and finish your opponent off. By the same token, if you have a losing position, don't give up. Keep the position complicated and set your opponent as many problems as possible. My Wikipedia article on swindles has some inspiring examples of saves from seemingly hopeless positions.

How Not to Play Chess

In this game, White thoughtfully gives up his dark-squared bishop for a knight, weakening his dark squares and giving Black the bishop pair. He then allows Black to occupy e3, completely blockading White's position. A queen trade doesn't stop Black from developing a mating attack. White should have played 17.Bg2 Rhd8 18.Nf2 Rxc4, when he is busted but at least avoids immediate loss. Instead, he stumbled into mate.

A Magnificent Trap in the Trompowsky

The Anglo-Swiss GM Joe Gallagher pulled off the elegant trap given below against the Trompowsky Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5). All of White's moves are very plausible. Best may have been the retrograde 5.Bc1!?, arguing that the queen doesn't really do much on b6, and intending to drive back Black's knight with f3 and e4. White played 7.Bxb8 because he was worried about 7.cxd4 Nc6 8.Nf3 Nb4. After 7...dxc3!, 8.Be5?? seemed to hold everything, but Gallagher's glorious 8...Rxa2!! annihilated White. On 9.Rxa2, 9...c2! would threaten both 10...cxb1(Q)# and 10...c1(Q)#.

Chessgames.com says that the game ended after 8...Rxa2!!, but Gallagher says that White unsportingly played on, even though it is difficult to hold his losses to "only" a rook and knight. This game is reminiscent of the famous Schlechter-Perlis game, except that in that game Black avoided the worst with 8...Nxc6!, leaving him just a pawn down.

Beware of queen checks!

Many, many opening traps involve a surprise queen check that picks up an errant piece. This includes the shortest decisive master game in history (apart from no-move forfeits, 1.c4 Resigns and such), given below. Black's 3...Qa5+ forks White's king and bishop, winning the latter. If you look at big databases, you'll see that this trap has also occurred a number of times since. Occasionally White has even drawn the game, despite dropping a clear piece on move 3! The website 365chess.com (highly recommended; it allows you free access to a 3.5 million game database) has seven games with this trap, two of which ended in draws!! The Black players who only drew were rated 2259 and 2199. These games provide further proof of the truth of the adages, "You can't win [or even draw] by resigning." and "The hardest thing in chess is to win a won game."