Annotated chess game

This is one of those 2B vs 2N games on an open board that is such an advantage to the long-range pieces. I do believe the bishop-pair to be over-rated, but this is the sort of game in which they come into their own. At the time, I felt my attacking opportunities had pretty much gone by this, and was thrown back onto the defensive. Although White's dark-square bishop is for the moment out of play, it seemed to me that would change shortly.

The last several moves White has kept the initiative by a series of obvious short-range threats, to which I seemed to have little option but direct response. If you look carefully you will find that my knights don't have very many friendly squares available. Dour defence was all I had. Having said that, I still felt that a draw was well within reach at this point.

unfriendly squares!! same thing happened my last game vs Pete. My knights' options became limited. I have a theory that Pete will sometimes delay an attack in favor of limiting his opponent's options, ...as long as it doesn't require he commit to a bad position. I've read that one should try to prevent their opponent from doing to them what they want to do to their opponent. Pete's patience I suspect helps enable this approach.

I felt at the time that the f-pawn had to be stopped. If 34...Re7 35.f5 Ra7 36.Re2 Ra3 (...Ra4!?) 37.Rb3 Ra4 38.Kf4 Rxc4 39.Rxe4 ... Black would have gained the leading doubled pawn at the cost of his one genuine counter-attacking asset. I was relying very heavily on my e-pawn to preserve some chances.

Doesn't 41...Nf5ch look obvious? It did to me, and I spent a lot of time on it. Unfortunately, it seemed to pull the Black Knight away from the 'sharp end' on the Q-side, whilst bringing the WK closer to the action: 41...Nf5ch 42.Kf4 Nd4 43.a6! ... Now if 43...e3 44.a7! Nxa7 45.Rb8ch!? Kg7 46.Rxa7ch Kg6 47.Rg8ch Kf6! (47...Kg6 48.Rb6!) 48.Rgg7 ...-[threatens mate in one]- 48...Ne2ch 49.Kg4 and it does appear that Black's e-pawn is carrying the fight for Black. However, suppose White were to try this at move 45? 45.Rxa7! Nxb5 46.cxb5 e2 47.Ra1 e1=Q 48.Rxe1 Rxe1 49.b6 Rb1 50.Ke5 ... I would certainly be fancying White's chances here! Of course, I didn't look this far in either line. I just felt from what I did find that Black's chances did not lie in this direction.

But they are holding up White's Q-side pawns. I hoped that this would prove an obstacle insurmountable to White. Had the Black h-pawn stood at h7, it might well have been.

Actually, I thought White really would go into that line, and had prepared a defence for it. But I have to admit that White would have retained fine winning chances even then. The hoped-for line runs 48.Rhxc6 Rxc6 49.Rxa7! Re6 50.h4 Kf8 51.h5 Kg8 52.Ra8ch Kh7 53.a7 Ra6 54.Kxe4 Ra4ch 55.Kd5 Ra1. The plan from here on is simply to check the WK away from the a-pawn, and then pull the rook back to the a-file. When I saw White's 48th move I felt a sense of disappointment that grew as I realised I had no good plan against a simple mating attack, coupled with the tying-down effect this pawn would have once it reached h6 or h7.

I thought of that - even nearly played it, but after 54....Kd8 55.Rb7 it's pretty much 'as you were.' The fact is, Black has no credible defence available, and hasn't had since White decided not to go into the Rxc6 lines.

an interesting game. thank you Ion

No problemo!