Trapping a piece: winning material with no tactic at all
The quietest way to win a piece. You do not attack it twice, you do not fork anything. You take away its squares and then attack it once.
- 120 positions in the course
- Difficulty 659–2449
- Section: Tactics
- 5 levels
What trapping means
A piece is trapped when it is attacked and every square it could move to is either covered or occupied. It does not have to be a brilliant combination -- often it is one pawn push against a bishop that went raiding, and the piece has been quietly doomed for three moves.
The classic victims are predictable. Bishops that took a pawn on the edge, knights on the rim with two squares, queens that went hunting on the seventh rank, and rooks that grabbed a pawn behind enemy lines.
How to spot it
- Count the escape squares of any enemy piece in your half of the board. Two or fewer is a trapping candidate.
- Look for pawn moves rather than piece moves. A pawn attacking a bishop or knight is the cheapest possible attacker.
- Check whether the piece's own side is blocking its retreat. Half of all trapped pieces are trapped by their own pawns.
- When a piece takes a pawn deep in your position, ask how it gets home before you ask whether you are down a pawn.
Three trapped pieces to collect
Three positions from the 120 in this skill, easiest first. The highlighted squares are the move your opponent has just played. Work it out before you open the answer.
Position 1
Black to move. Find the best move.
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59.Ba1 59...b2 60.Bxb2 60...Nxb2
The line comes out 2 pawns ahead. Every retreat square is covered or occupied, so a single attacker is enough to win the piece outright.
The position comes from an endgame of a real game, rated 809 for difficulty. The answer reaches a winning advantage.
Position 2
White to move. Find the best move.
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26...Bxd3 27.Ra1 Qxa1 28.Nxa1
The line wins a piece. Every retreat square is covered or occupied, so a single attacker is enough to win the piece outright.
The position comes from the middlegame of a real game, rated 1565 for difficulty. The answer reaches a clear advantage.
Position 3
Black to move. Find the best move.
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18.Nf4 18...Ng4 19.Qxe7 19...Qxe7
The line wins a rook. Every retreat square is covered or occupied, so a single attacker is enough to win the piece outright.
The position comes from the middlegame of a real game, rated 2213 for difficulty. The answer reaches a winning advantage.
Not getting your own pieces trapped
Before you send a piece somewhere to take something, count its escape squares from the square it will land on. If the answer is fewer than two, you are not winning a pawn, you are lending a bishop.
The specific one worth memorising is the poisoned edge pawn. A bishop that captures on a2, h2, a7 or h7 is one pawn move away from being trapped in a great many structures, and the pawn move is usually already available.
Questions people ask
How do you trap a piece in chess?
Take away its escape squares first and attack it second. In practice that usually means advancing a pawn at it while its retreat is blocked by its own side, or by a piece of yours that already covers the squares it would run to.
Which pieces get trapped most often?
Bishops and queens, because they travel far and are the most tempted by loose pawns. A bishop that captures a rook-file pawn on the second or seventh rank is the single most common trapped piece in club chess.
Nearby patterns
Trapping Pieces sits in Tactics. The rest of that section:
Printable worksheetsThree free PDF sheets of these positions with a full answer key. No sign-up, print and copy as many as you like.