Three swindles

[Roger de Coverly]

I was wary of the psychological boost white might get from me giving back even a little material, given that he's even decided to play on.

I think it's the other way round. You have to ask why he is playing on in an ending a Rook down. So you find his tricks and eliminate them. Giving up material doesn't matter as long as your opponent has absolutely no hope in the resulting position. Increment makes it easy, there's little hope of the opponent running out of time.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I was wary of the psychological boost white might get from me giving back even a little material, given that he's even decided to play on.

Easy to say what I'm about to say when it's not my clock that's ticking, but this is faulty thinking. Giving back material - in the right way - can kill a game dead. There's no psychological boost at all.

My winning plan, btw, in contrast to Rogers was take on d6, swap rooks, bring the other rook to the 2nd to cut off the king. Then WHite can play the b4-b5 trick, but you just take then switch rook to a2. OK his pawn gets to a7 put his king can't move anywhere and we just march ours to b7 and it's goodnight Vienna.

That there's more than one plan shows how easy it is.

Learning to give material back in the right way is the key to winning positions like this without any risk at all.


[Edit: ah, i see Roger beat me to it]

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Just to add to what Roger and Jonathan have said, after 37...Nxd6 there are two lines: (a) 38.Rxd6 Rxd6 39.Bxd6 Re1+ 40.Kg2 Re2+ and 41...Rxb2, with a simple win; and (b) 38.Bxd6 Rd2 when the threat of mate on e1 forces 39. Re7 Rxe7 40.Bxe7 Rxb2, again with a simple win. That is cleaner than Re6 which doesn't win the bishop back (due to Rd8+ and Rf8+), though it does still win. In that sort of position, with a threatening advanced pawn, and being a rook up, it is almost a no-brainer to chop the pawn off and simplify the position. The sort of trick that gets learnt by experience after losing positions like that!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Perhaps we can say then, that the .. Ba3 combination has been known, if not widely, for nearly fifty years. There may have been more games, it would have been only four years since the high profile example of Keres-Fischer, so players would have been willing to explore what happened if you don't sacrifice the Queen.

Thanks, Roger, that correspondence game from 1963 between Peltonen and Lampela was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I will add that to my notes on the game! Having Fischer and Tal in there, and an obscure correspondence game makes it look quite, um, eclectic. I can only keep kicking myself that I failed to finish off with a spectacular mate and subsided instead to a wretched draw.

So assuming White avoids the Qxg7 blunder, whether players are prepared to play to go into the line will depend on what they think of the resulting ending after Nxe6 and Qxc3. Black is slightly worse perhaps.

Black is slightly worse, as you say, but I'd be prepared to continue to play this line against higher-graded players in the hope that they might blunder as my opponent did. Also, presuming, of course, that they don't read this forum... There may, of course, be some other lines that are missing from the picture here.

Going back briefly to the final position in the Peltonen-Lampela correspondence game from 1963, I had analysed this position over the board in my game (the only difference being the pawn on h6 rather than h7) and correctly concluded that White is lost, but unfortunately my opponent worked this out as well, and prolonged the game (well, you never gain anything by resigning, do you?) by playing Nc5+. This left me to decide between taking with the Queen and being a rook and two pieces up, or moving the Black king to e7 (taking the knight on c5 with the knight allows d6+ and taking with the bishop allows bxc3). I chose to move the king because it was easier to calculate and I thought taking the knight with the queen would mean having to calculate several possible checks from White. With hindsight, I should have realised that White doesn't really have enough material left to deliver mate!

One sideline here, is if after 20...Ke7 White plays 21.Nd3 (instead of 21.Nxe4), which allows Black to mate with 21...Rac8 22.Bd1 Bxb2+ 23.Nxb2 Qd2+ 24. Kb1 Nc3+ 25. Ka1 Qc1#, though admittedly, being a rook and a piece up, Black hardly needs to deliver mate, but it would have been nice.

BTW, if I want to mention the Peltonen-Lampela correspondence game in my notes, after my move of 17...Ba3 (or indeed after my opponent's move of 17.Qxg7), what is the best way to do this, given that h6 wasn't played in that game? Something like "an almost identical position arose in the game Peltonen-Lampela (corr, 1963) without the move h6 having been played, and the game finished with the moves 19.Qxf7+ Kc8 followed by White's resignation, instead of my opponent's 20.Nc5+ in this game"? There must be a less clunky way of putting that.

[Roger de Coverly]

BTW, if I want to mention the Peltonen-Lampela correspondence game in my notes, after my move of 17...Ba3 (or indeed after my opponent's move of 17.Qxg7), what is the best way to do this, given that h6 wasn't played in that game? Something like "an almost identical position arose in the game Peltonen-Lampela (corr, 1963) without the move h6 having been played, and the game finished with the moves 19.Qxf7+ Kc8 followed by White's resignation, instead of my opponent's 20.Nc5+ in this game"? There must be a less clunky way of putting that.

You need to have mentioned the Keres-Fischer move order, which is the same position except for h6, Something like " the same combination was seen in the 1963 game, arising from the Keres-Fischer move order (without h6)" Here White tried 19 Qxf7+ Kc8 20 resigns.

[Geoff Chandler]

Have to start a new thread Chris.