Annotated chess game

Not one of my more glorious efforts...  

Benko's Opening.

Artful.

I rather regret playing 7.f3 - rather too provocative, and not my usual style at all. Mind you, i's not such a bad idea to try something a bit different from time to time. However, the seeds of future problems were laid with my 7th and 8th moves...

Already there seems to be more purpose to Black's game than White's.

White seems to be waiting for a mistake.

I agree - up to a point. The g2-bishop is doing useful work knights are guarding the ingress points on the e-file. But Black's pieces are generally much more active than White's. At around this point the game fell off the radar a bit, my having formed a plan to free up the Q-side a bit.

I rather underestimated the force of this - again, not my usual style to allow my opponent an unopposed tenure of the only open file.

It was probably high time for 20.Rae1, though. But I thought the win of a pawn kept things under control.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Fact is, I wasn't sufficiently worried about the situation.

Weakening the castled pawns to defend against a threat that has not yet materialized presents a different kind of risk. Risk that your opponent will exploit your weakened castle. Also, "opportunity risk" that you could have played something more effective to attack your opponent and win the game. Still, the move as played doesn't seem to do any harm at this point.

As it transpired this was a very good (and unexpected) move. The point is not so much to defend against some non-existent threat as to provide his d7-cishop with a fine post at f5. OK, the bishop didn't need it in the event, but in several might-have-been lines, the bishop does come in at f5 to good effect.

"Sometimes by playing a decent general move you accidentally protect yourself against a specific unforeseen threat. Such is life, and such is chess."

Partly to support b4, but also to allow Qc2-d2 and exchange queens. I didn't appreciate it until Black's next move, but White is now caught in a forcing losing line that he couldn't do much about.

After 23...b4 it dawned on me gradually that I had a losing game. Fairly soon I had worked out the likely course of events into a lost endgame, and from here on there just didn't seem to be any sensible way to deviate into something more complicated and nebulous offering counterplay, even at the cost of material. Too late! I ought to have seen this coming several moves before Black's 23rd.

This is the move that I'd really like to see Ion's own comment on.

Of course, the rook is nailed to the protection of the f2-knight. If 27.Rd1 Be2! or simply 27.Rd1 Ra2 look great for Black. The only alternative to the text seems to be 27.Bc1, but it's hard to see that much is changed after 27...Qxd4. I was hoping (against hope) that giving up the exchange in this way would relieve some of the pressure. Even then I was somewhat relying my opponent to find a bad move somewhere. Fat chance. White's position was already almost resignable.

Nice move!

Too obvious to miss... Try as I might, I couldn't find anything better (except resignation) than my horrible next move...

And creating a passed pawn.