Chris Rice wrote:Brian Towers wrote:Presumably it is 27 ... Qc7 which loses as that sets up white's Qxg6. Perhaps if black had instead moved the d8 rook out of the way, perhaps d3, black may even have had winning chances with a plan to play the queen to d8 and then d4 followed by bishop back to g7, driving the queen away and opening up the possibility of winning the white rook stuck on the h file? A bit hopeful, I know. Every time black gets a move white gets one too so maybe pie in the sky, but if the mating threats go away that rook is vulnerable.
Having had a second look that seems to be right, 27...Qc7 is a blunder (25...Re5 isn't so bad at all) and Stockfish 8 gives instead 27...Rd3 with a big plus for Black although again I'm finding it difficult to know quite why its so good. White missed Qxg6+ the first time on move 28, which shows that it wasn't that easy to see and it looks as though Black would have still been better after 28 Bg5 if he plays 28...Qe5. Interesting game.
Yes a couple of real "senior moments" at the end, alas, but a really interesting game. With all the previous play on the dark squares, a combination on the light squares proved a blind spot (even for the Dutch champion first time around). Of course I saw 28...Qe5 but mistakenly thought Rxf7 worked in reply; in fact he would have nothing better than 29 Rh8+ which exchanges rooks but he would still be worse afterwards, though not as badly off as if I had found 27...Rd3 which just didn't occur to me. One point is that my B can afterwards go to d4, where it is totally shielded from attack by his KR so it perpetually defends his mate threats. Jorden said he would then have had no moves and with something like ...c5, ...Qc6 I would be threatening ...Rg3+.
However it was a very interesting game, especially for the amazing manoeuvres of my QR which Simon Williams liked. It moved 9 times and I think each move with the rook was good. However I have not yet examined the game with an engine.
There hasn't been time with another round at 9am next morning.
Jorden said that when I played 21...Rd4-e4 he thought it was a bad move but after thinking for a while about the position after 24...Bf6 he realised I had tricked him, not the other way around. But of course he saw a lot more complicated variations during the game than I did.
Superficially 21...Rd4-d3 was obvious, and was perhaps playable if analysed correctly, but the complications after 22 Bxb6!? Rd2! are horrendous, with two long main lines, one starting 23 Qe3 axb6 24 Qh6 Bc5 (which probably leads to a draw Jorden said but I didn't fathom at all) and the other being the Q sac for R,B+P which seemed unclear to me.
Unfortunately giving my opponent an advantage of 50 years and 500 Elo points ultimately proved too much, my own fault of course.
I think that if I had been playing somebody below 2300 I would have perhaps won this game.
He spent half an hour on the prophylactic 19 c4 which cuts out counter-attacks based on ...Rd1 and ...Qa6 which would have refuted the tries 19 Qg4 and 19 Qe3 which he had originally thought would have won for him when he chose Rh3.
The final blunder (leaving d8-R en prise) was just because of shock and subconsciously knowing there was no point in prolonging the game against a strong GM.
This morning I won in 60+ moves from a terrible position, opposite of yesterday, and took a half-point bye in the evening as was planned all along. It's just been snowing for the third time today with good sunny spells in between. Hoping the skies will be clear near midnight, as forecast, for a chance of seeing the Northern Lights.
