This interesting position recently came up in one of my cc
games and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out (as White on the move)
what I should play next.
My database had three games in it with this position with the
results of +1 -0 =2 so that wasn’t much help.
The continuations were 23.Nxh7, 23.e5 and 23.Qg4. Houdini suggested 23.e5 and my other “go to”
engine, Fire 1.5 xTreme liked 23.Qg4. Still, I was fascinated by 23.Nxh7 and
spent a great deal of time examining it especially because in my db of
correspondence games by top-level players white had won. I reasoned that 1)
white was a strong cc player and 2) he surely had carefully analyzed the position
before playing 23.Nxh7 and 3) the engines evaluated the resulting positions at
nearly 0.00. So, not being able to find
anything wrong with the move, I decided to go ahead and play it and the game
continued 23.Nxh7 Kxh7 24.f6 g6 25.e5 Kg8 27.Bxg6 fxg6 28.f7+ Kg7 29.Bxd8
Rxd8 30.Qd2 Rf8 31.Rae1 reaching the following position which I realized
was critical.
In the game in my db Black continued 31…Bd4+ and eventually lost. However, Houdini was suggesting 31…b4 as the
best move and evaluating it at about 0.20 P’s in Black’s favor, so I decided to
spend some time examining its suggestion. I ended up not liking what I was
seeing; White always seemed to be slowly but surely drifting into slightly
inferior positions! Eventually after much analysis on my part we reached this position:
Black has just played 54…Kxh5 and the engines are evaluating his
position as about 3.5 P’s in Black’s favor but I realized that if I can keep checking the game will be
drawn by the 50-move rule. However Black
discovered a plan where he boldly played his K over to the Q-side and captured
my b-P arriving at the following position:
Black has just played 75…Kxb2 so now I have to keep checking until
move 125 and not allow his b-P to move.
Can it be done? The answer is, “No.” If you remove Black’s b-Pawn and setup the
position in the Shredder Endgame Database, Black wins in 34 moves and if my
math is correct, that puts us at move 122.
Still, all is not lost because if Black relies totally on engine moves
to make his selection, it’s highly unlikely that any engine will recognize this
and will possibly suggest less than optimal moves…or so I reasoned. I ran several shootouts from this position
and found some positions where black was threatening mate on the next move and
white was compelled to capture the black B which would start the count all over
again. But…this situation always occurred
slightly the other side of move 122. Of
course Black could probably find an improvement and save a couple of
moves. It was going to be very close! Here’s the position after Black’s 88…Ke4:
Shootouts were suggesting that Black was going to mate within the 50 move
rule, but I’m still going to hang in there and play 89.Qe2+ and see what
happens. So what did happen? I know you’re
dying to find out.
I made a mouse slip on the server and played 89.Qd2 and resigned after 89…b2. Disgust can’t describe my feelings. How does one make such a stupid mistake on a
server where you have to verify your move by answering the question “Do you
really want to pay 89.Qe2+” I don’t
know, but this was a very painful post.
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