Talk:Queen's Gambit Declined, Elephant Trap

Embedding interactive board from lichess.org[edit]

Would be nice to embed from lichess.org for all chess related matters on Wikipedia. Requires some kind of whitelisting I suppose. https://lichess.org/study/FjcwwNCA/sZufI2Sd — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.82.2.214 (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Inventing a chess opening[edit]

"The Cambridge Springs opening had not yet been invented in 1848." Would it be more appropriate to say that an opening is discovered rather than invented? Dynzmoar (talk) 15:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. The possibility of playing the sequence of moves was always there, but the fact that it's an important line to know about in actual play was not true until it was invented. 91.107.149.33 (talk) 12:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

Do chess scholars have any theories about why this trap is called the "Elephant Trap"? In some chess sets, the rooks are depicted as elephants, but no rook plays a role in this variation.

If there's any information about the origin of the name, it would be great to add it to the article. JamesMLane t c 05:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Elephant is the Bishop not the rook; see Chess pieces and the Russian ru:Слон as one possibility. Also covered in History_of_chess#Early_history. SunCreator (talk) 14:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen non-Staunton chess sets in which the Rooks were depicted as elephants, bearing on their backs siege towers that resemble the Rook in the Staunton design. Here's an image of such a set.

By the year 1527 Vida, bishop of Albay, published a poem about a chess game between "Apollo" and "Mercury". The rooks were fortifications on the back of an elephant. The European chess players took over the description. Finally they left out the elephant for the normal use. [1]

Yet, as you point out, there seems to be a tie between elephants and Bishops. One explanation is here: that in Chaturanga sets, two different pieces incorporated elephants in their design -- one that became our Bishop and one that became our Rook.

But, putting that aside, is there a source for stating that the Elephant Trap is so named because a key move is made by a Bishop, which was sometimes depicted as an elephant? JamesMLane t c 00:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Real Elephant Trap[edit]

What is a real elephant trap? what is it named for? how does the trap work? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.36.44.4 (talk) 12:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]