Friday, 3 August 2018

Missed Opportunity

I QUICKLY built an overwhelming advantage in my game today in round six of the 50+ Seniors at the British Chess Championships...and blew it even quicker.
White to play and win in Spanton (1927) - Martin J Simons (2008)
White is winning, and lots of moves preserve that winning advantage, but most direct is the simple 16.Rh4.
I rejected it because I could not see anything convincing after 16...g5. But Stockfish9 finds a way to get into the attack the one white piece (apart from the king) that is not doing anything: 17.Rb5! c5 18.d4! Nxe4 19.Qc2.
I played the tame 16.Ng4? The game continued 16...Bxg4 17.Bxg4 Ne6 18.Bxe6 fxe6 19.Rh4 Ng8 20.Rxh6 Nxh6 21.Qxh6+ Kg8 22.Qxg6+ Kh8 (not 22...Qg7? 23.Qxe6+) 23.Qh6+ Kg8 24.Qg6+ ½-½.
Maybe I should have played on with two pawns for the exchange, but I was far from sure White had an advantage, and I was somewhat disheartened by the feeling I must have missed a win.
We did look at continuations in the postmortem, and the position seemed fairly equal.

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