The position is lost for black either way. You could argue it is better to lose queen for knight and rook - you lose 9 points, but gain 5 and 3, a net loss of only one point, compared to losing a knight for nothing - losing 3 points.

Actually both his rooks are protected - the one on f8 by his king and the one on a7 by his knight on c6. His problem will be after Qxc5 his Nc6 is attacked. Rc7 is about the only way to get all his pieces protected, but then I just advance my queen side pawns.

@jkarp: no, one of the rooks is protected and he can then protect the other rook as well. @charleshiggie: of course you are right, Ra7 is defended by Nc6.

It wins a pawn and leaves me with 3 lovely connected passed pawns on the queen side

Yes, but he hasn't the ability to attack it. If I take the bishop with my rook, my a pawn may go at some stage, as it is no longer protected by the rook

simple mate

Nice game and annotation! Thanks for sharing!!

very nice and lamen

Nice game!

Very nice mate!

Thanks for reading!

So you are ahead here. But I think you lost a move when I said do f3 instead of moving your King's Bishop into structure when that bishop could have been used elsewhere. I got lost when you moved your bishop to protect the pawn. John You could have protected the pawn with to f3 and have an ATTACK that would have ended the game sooner than later. It's called The King's Gambit. The bishop pawn (on the King's side) is sacrificed for POSITION in the e4 open of the King's Gambit. Position was lost when you shot out your bishop to protect the pawn. And look! You finally have the f3 pawn in the final position in this annotated game. John I finally got to this game after I asked you for the link. I just looked over the first few moves and made my comments. You played, in my opinion, a longer game than necessary. However, I am not of your caliber here. Just my input here. J