The full game can be seen at K1 but here I want to focus on the ending.
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| Black has just captured on e6 - how would you assess this ending? |
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Black is temporarily a pawn up but has two queenside isolated pawns. White can restore material equality immediately, but will then have a smashed kingside. My main analysis engines Stockfish14.1 and Komodo12.1.1 rate the position as dead-equal.
24.gxf3
The engines reckon 24.Rd1 is also dead-equal, eg 24...fxg2 25.Rd8+ Kf7 26.Rc8 a6 27.Rc8+ Kf7 28.Rc7+ etc.
24...f5 25.Kf1
25.Bxg7 Kxg7 26.Rc5 also maintains the balance, but I saw no reason to bring the black king closer to the centre.
25...Bxc3 26.Rxc3 Kf7
IM Paul Littlewood explained in the postmortem he swopped off into a rook-and-pawn ending because he hoped to get at my kingside weaknesses, but White has enough activity on the queenside to prevent this.
27.Ra3 Re7 28.Ra6 Rc7
The black rook is horribly passive but the engines reckon the position remains dead-equal.
29.Ke2 Ke6 30.Kd3 Kd7 31.Kc4 Kc8!?
The king is to take over the black rook's defensive duties on the queenside, freeing the rook to become active again.
32.Ra3
32,Kc5 leads to sharper play, eg 32..Kb7 33.Ra4 Re7 34.Kd6 Re2 35.Rb4+ Kc8 36.Kxc6 Rxf2 37.h4 Rxf3 38.Rb7, but the balance is maintained throughout, according to the engines.
32...Rb7 33.Rb3 Rd7
Exchanging into a pawn ending by 33...Rxb3!? 34.Kxb3 ups the stakes but is risky, eg the natural-looking 34...Kd7? seems to lose to 34.f4 Kd6 35.Kc4 etc. However the engines reckon Black is OK after 34...g5 and probably 34...Kc7!?
34.Rd3 Rb7
34...Re7 35.Re3 Rxe3? 36.fxe3 favours White, whose king is more active.
35.Rb3 ½–½
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