Annotated chess game

Taking with the knight was muich the better option, as after 11.Nxe4 Nxe4? 12.Bxe4 White would be attacking the a8-rook. Then comes 12...c6 13.Ne5 and White is making the running. After 11.Bxe4 Nxe4 12.Nxe4, White still would have the better of it, but not quite so much - not quite so menacing.

A reasonable defence, but ...Nxe4 would have been slightly better.

White makes a very bad mistake! Take a look at the Black b-pawn, and the square immediately in front of it, and the rook to its rear. Then take a glance at the White pieces occupying a3 and c3.

The right move would have been 12...b4, winning a piece for just one pawn.

Nice idea - some useful threats. But the simpler 13...b4 was still good. The game is starting to get complicated, which makes good moves a little harder to find and identify, and bad moves very easy to find, though still hard to identify!

Better to have taken the knight (,,,Bxc3) even though White would have recaptured with the Queen. There would have been a little bit of tactics there: 14...Bxc3 15.Qxc3 b4! 16.Bxb4 Bxe4 attacking the Queen. Then comes 17.Qe1 ... attacking both knights. Black then reduces the loss by 17...Rxb4! 18.Qxb4 c3! and the Black Queen protects the a5-knight. As a result of that little flurry of tactics, material will still be even, but Black would have knight and bishop for rook and pawn, with a reasonable game.

White had two good continuations, here: [A] 15.d5 and [B] 15.Bb4. Both carry threats against Black's pieces. The b3-b4 pawn move actually helps Black, as 15...Nc4! leaves Black with a nicely placed minor piece , knight, or, after 16.Nxc4 Bxc4, a bishop. ++++++++ Having said that, the position is not so simple - quite complicated, withal. The a5-knight's move to c4 (or anywhere else) exposes the queen and b8-rook to a knight forK: 16.Nc6. At the same time, though, the knight attacks the White a3-bishop. So if after 15...Nc4, White plays 16.Nc6, Black can reply 16...Qe8 OR, probably better, 16...Bg4, skewering the White Queen against the d1-rook. I'll leave you to play around with the possibilities. Suffice to say, Black would have at least an even game in that position.

Not good, as the b7 square is already covered by two White pieces (bishop, reinforced by the queen); and only one Black piece. No better would have been 15...Nc6. So 15...Nc4 really had to be played - the only move for an equal game.

White overlooked 16.Bxb7, with a winning game. There really is no good response to that.

Great! Kills off an active White piece, and brings Black back into the game.

OK, but Black will have to be careful, as the knight fork at c6 will become once again a possibility.

I like this, as an effective indirect defence (really a counter-attack) against the threat of Nc6. Even better was 19...Qd4, also attacking the rook, but ruling out for good the potential knight fork at c6.

Understandably aggressive, but overlooks a tactic available to Black...

It is really hard to criticise this move, as I can see the motivation behind it. Unfortunately, it should lose (see next comment). The boomer move here would have been 20...Nf5! with White's safest course being to abandon the exchange: 21.Qg4 Nxh4 22.Qxh4 Bg7 and Black has a winning edge. Useless for White would be 21.Nc6 Qe8!, when White has two pieces 'en prise'.