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| White is two pawns down and has four isolated pawns, two of which are doubled |
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To add to White's woes, Black has a protected passed pawn that is just three squares away from queening.
The one glimmer of hope is the exposure of Black's king. Indeed, it quickly becomes obvious that White's only hope is the weakness of the black king.
The game saw 34.Re7, which leaves Black with a winning position.
Stockfish16 and Komodo14.1 show there was a draw in 34.Re8+ Kf7 35.Re3!
Note that the immediate 34.Re3 does not draw as Black has 34...Qc1+ 35.Kg2 Qb1.
That draw was not easy to spot, but two moves later the following position arose.
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| Again it is White to play and draw |
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The game continuation of 34.Qd6? was too slow after 34...Qg6+ 35.Kh3 Qf5+ 36.Kg2 h5 37.Qd8+ Kh7 38.Re8 Kh6 39.h4 Qg6+.
However, in the last diagram White has two drawing lines: 36.Re8+ Kf7 37.Qc7+! (or 37.Re7+!) etc and 36.Rxg7+! Kxg7 37.Qc7+ etc.
LESSON: many desperate-looking positions have hidden resources. These are not always easy to spot - hence the 'hidden' - but when they are the only hope, they must be searched for until every avenue is exhausted. Quite often they involve sacrifices that can be overlooked in a superficial search.
I wonder if in a Blitz game or if really short of time, you might play Rxg7+ as it's an initiative move and there's a check as a follow up. If there's time to pause to analyse, it may be possible to compute that there's no escape for the Black King with repetition with checks.
ReplyDeleteRdC
White certainly had to try something, as 'normal' play was always going to lead to a simple win for Black.
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