I am trying to Limit the number of Protected Accounts a User should have under their ownership.  This is the trigger I created with the help of the SFDC Community 

trigger Limit1000AccountsForUsers on Account (before insert, before update) {
    Account accs = Trigger.new[0];

    if (accs.Protected_Accounts__c == true) {
        Integer accounts = [ SELECT COUNT()FROM Account WHERE Account.OwnerId = : userInfo.getUserId()]; 
        system.debug(accounts);

        if (accounts >3 ) {
            accs.addError('You are your limit of Accounts.');
        }
    }
}