1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.Nc3 Bg4 5.Nxe5! Bxd1?? 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5#
Seven moves. Below: why White's fifth move works, why Black's fifth move loses, and what should have been played instead.
After 4...Bg4 the black bishop attacks the knight on f3, and behind that knight stands the white queen. This is a pin: moving the knight appears to hang the queen.
The key word is «appears». A pin against the queen is not absolute: the queen is not the king, and she can be given up when you get more in return. The whole trap rests on missing that.
White breaks the pin in the bluntest way possible: the knight leaves f3, taking the e5 pawn on the way and attacking both the bishop on g4 and the knight on c6.
This is where the game is decided. Black has a calm move that leaves him a piece up, and a greedy one that is mate in two.
Black takes the queen. On paper he has won a piece worth nine pawns - and has left f7 undefended.
6.Bxf7+ forces 6...Ke7: the bishop cannot be captured, since after Kxf7 the king walks into a fork, and stepping to e7 is all that is left. Then 7.Nd5 is mate.
Counting material here is pointless: White has knight, knight and bishop against a queen and rooks, and it is enough, because the black king is surrounded by his own men. The same principle runs through the named checkmate patterns: the squares a king loses are taken by friendly pieces as often as by enemy ones.
The answer is short: 5...Nxe5! - take the knight, not the queen.
White has to move the queen. Winning the piece back with 6.Qxg4 does not work: the knight on e5 simply takes the queen, and now White really is a piece down.
The general rule this trap teaches better than any amount of theory: before grabbing a free piece, look at your own king. What loses the game for Black is not a bad move but inattention to f7 - the most vulnerable square in the opening.
The pattern is not tied to this exact move order. There are three conditions, and the order does not matter:
With all three in place, the Nxe5 sacrifice is worth calculating. With even one missing - say the bishop is not yet on c4 - the sacrifice simply drops the queen.
Do not play for the trap as your main plan: an opponent who knows 5...Nxe5 ends up a piece up. It is far more useful as a shape you recognise when it appears by itself. Other shapes like it are gathered in opening traps, and the position most often arises from the basic tactical motifs of the Italian Game.
The trap is named after Kermur Sire de Legal, an eighteenth-century French player, the strongest player at the Cafe de la Regence in Paris and Philidor's teacher. The game in which it appeared is usually dated to around 1750; the move order there was slightly different, but the shape was the same: a queen sacrifice on e5, a bishop check on f7, and mate with the knight on d5.
Historians dispute the exact date and details of that game, so it is quoted as a legend rather than a document. That changes nothing about the trap itself - it works in any game where the three conditions above are met.
An opening trap in which White sacrifices the queen with Nxe5 and mates with three minor pieces: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.Nc3 Bg4 5.Nxe5 Bxd1 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5#.
Because 5...Bxd1 pulls the bishop away from the defence and leaves f7 covered by the king alone. After 6.Bxf7+ the king steps to e7 and the knight mates from d5.
Play 5...Nxe5 instead of taking the queen. Black stays a piece up, the bishop on g4 still holds the queen, and White has no attack on f7.
No. The sacrifice only works when Black has played d6, developed the bishop to g4, and White's bishop already stands on c4. Miss any one condition and White simply loses the queen.
Kermur Sire de Legal, an eighteenth-century French player, the strongest player at the Cafe de la Regence in Paris and the teacher of Philidor. The game containing the trap is dated to roughly 1750.
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More traps - opening traps. Mating patterns - named checkmates. The tactics behind them - tactics for beginners.
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