Edward King v Rupert GUINNESS (Kings lynn v Templars 07.03.19)
Here is my game from last night.
I was playing white. Rupert Guinness was black. 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 e6 The Reti declined. 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. a3 a5 6. b3 Bd6 7. Bb2 Ne5 I contemplated 8. Rc1, but black has Qe7 hitting the a3 pawn, so I decided to quietly develop. 8. Be2 c6 9. O-O Qc7 Ha, ha Rupert is targeting my h2 pawn. This caused me great thought. A point to note was that Rupert was playing about four times faster than I was. 10. NxN BxN 11. f4 Bd6 After much thought, I decided to free d2 for my knight. 12. Bf3 O-O I was much relieved, I thought that black's best tactic would have been to castle long, before launching a kingside pawn rush. 13. g3 ... I was planning to follow up with Rc1 and then exchange on d5, but I thought it important to reinforce the f4 pawn first. 13. ... e5 ? I am not convinced this was a deliberate sacrifice. I suspect that Rupert had, in his haste, simply neglected to consider the reduced defence on d5. It would have made better sense if Black had first castled queenside. In such asymmetrical assaults, a snatched pawn counts for very little. 14. cd ef 15. ef Re8 16. Kh1 Bd7 17, Rc1 Bh3 I decided not to be distracted by that, but to go for Rupert's black squared bishop. 18. Nb5 Qd7? I don't need to defend my f2 rook, if I can keep attacking the black queen. Why is Rupert inviting the obvious? I spent time looking for black's sacrifice. 19. dc bc 20 Bxc6 Qd8 21. BxN gxB I had expected QxB 22. Rf2 .... Let me first take my f2 Rook off its skewer, as poor black can only move one his two skewered rooks. 22. ..... Qb6 23, d4 ..... This took me a while to find, and the disparity on the clock widened. 23. .... Rad8 . I want to keep my white squared bishop on the a8-h1 diagonal to defend, but this is my last chance to snatch a rook. Lost time on this dilemma. 24. BxR RxB 25. NxB QxN I am an exchange and two pawns up, but utterly racked by indecision. What do I do about the a3 pawn? Sacrifice it, defend it or advance it. 26. a4 Re4 27. Rd2 Qd5 Oh no, a winning discovered check is threatened. 28. Kg1 f5 ? 29. Rc3 I was materially ahead on the board, but well behind on the clock; I considered my position as accident prone to mate by black queen on g2 or by black Rook on f1. I believed that there was adequate defence for white, but I could not see a way to win. So I, chickened out and, offered Rupert the draw. He accepted, said that this was a surprise, that he'd expected Rc4 and had also been concerned about Qh5 which I'd concluded did not work. Consider 29. Qa5 Qe6 30. QxB Re1+ 31. RxR QxR+ 32. Qf1 QxR Black has reversed his exchange loss and can recapture one of the two lost pawns. |