When your opponent makes a mistake in the opening you should take advantage of  those mistakes immediately. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush and if you can finish off your opponent before he even gets started you indeed have a bird in hand. Blitz players are especially aware of the fact that even though they may have a won game they could still lose if the clock runs out. That is why it is so important to hammer your opponent as soon as possible if for no other reason than letting the clock run out on your won game. Us Sado-Masochists want to win as quickly as possible simply because it makes our opponents so mad when we do!

BAD

The root cause of chess traps are bad moves. If you make no bad moves in the chess openings you cannot be caught in an opening trap!  This is a list of the actual bad moves that many amateurs and masters play.

Knight Fork Trick

Overused Queen 1

Overused Queen 2

Self Blocking Bishop 1

Self Blocking Bishop 2

Self Blocking Knight

Unprotected Pawn

Vulnerable Outposting

Wrong Queen Position

 

Opening

This is an alphabetic list of chess traps by opening.

Caro-Kahn Defense--Main Line

French Defense--Advance Variation

King's Gambit Declined

King's Gambit Declined--Falkbeer Counter Gambit

King's Knight Opening: General 1

King's Knight Opening: General 2

Ruy Lopez

Ruy Lopez 2

 

 Internet Links

Here are a few interesting web sites that have additional chess tricks and traps that may be of interest to you.

Wikipedia 

About.com

Videos

More Traps

Yet More