Nice game...18...Nf6 sounds good, no?

@jkarp: but as you'll see, White is winning a pawn. And yes, you're surely better. 18...d5 was a mistake.

Later I thought I should have played 21...Qe6.

a positional mistake. Better is 23. Bb2 it also defends the knight and also keeps e3-e4 as a option.

I am not sure I would argee with that assessment. Not knowing what to do is dangerous. It is how Mal Botivinnik lost his world championship title.

@jkarp: he does not play to win material, but to improve the position of his pieces. Having said that, I'm not sure if this is a good positional move as it also weakens the g3 square and the king's position in general and I cannot say what it really does to help White's position. (I would not want to play ...Ng4 anyway, of course)

positional play is as I define it placing your pieces on the optimal squares while at the same time avoiding unnecessary weakness. Positional play is very difficult to understand but very very strong. A good example of strong positional play is seeing that black's queen is sitting timidly on e6 and that black has increasing control of the e-file. Therefore, white would like to have his knight on f3 to threaten Nd4 and challenge black's control of the e-file. So 27. Rxc8 Rxc8 28. Nf3 Ne4(improving the knight position and preventing e3-e4) 29. Nd4 Qg6 30. Rc1 Rxc1 31. Bxc1 is objectively better for white.

Because of his greater control of the centre, extra pawn and better piece postion white is clearly winning. But it is not over yet and lots of time for white to lose the advantage. What white needs to do is exchange pieces so that his pawn advantage increases.

jkarp, thanks!

Wow, what an great position. The whole game is balancing on a knife edge.

And what a curious set of four bishops! Don't think I've seen that before.

@jkarp: I think Jack Stockel is wrong in this case. I think your strong bishop is the bishop which has the most scope (most control over important squares) which was in this case my bishop on d5. But I wanted to plant a piece on e4 and that was why I allowed the exchange (I thought after the exchange I might have more pressure against e3). But probably it wasn't the right thing to do as I'm still a pawn behind. But I didn't really see any alternatives.

Indeed!

No matter what white plays this is a difficult game to win.

40. Rc8+ is a draw because a lone rook can not checkmate and black can easily protect his pawns from capture. More testing albiet still drawsih in my mind is 40. Kf2 gxf4 41. gxf4 Kf7 42. Rg1 Bf8 43. Kf3 is hard for black.

jkarp, blacks king being exposed is outweighed by its usefulness of being an attacking piece in the endgame. Here it attacks the Rook and Bishop. The latter has to move, which then allows black to take twice on f4, and white takes back twice, he will lose his bishop, and black will have gained a pawn. I do think though that 43. Rc8 would have been better than Rc2. Then 45.Ra8 or 45.Rf8, and White is better because his Rook is a lot more active.

Well spotted. Great King placement for Black here.

I had already looked at this line when I played 39...g5, if I recall correctly.

I also missed it.

I had missed that. @jkarp: no, the game is drawn now. Material is equal and we will exchange right into a drawn ending with rook and one pawn each, as you will see.

you would have an edge but not enough to win. I n rook pawn ending the winning side needs a two pawn advantage at least to win.

@jkarp: look at the game continuation. I have to play actively so he can't advance any further and that's just what I did.

@Jkarp this the rare exception to the rule of a pawn advantage for the win rule. In a KRPvsKr it is a draw because defending sides rook activity and king ablitity to block the advanced pawn prevents the advance.

Thanks, jkarp!

Great game!

Great game guys. Well played by both players.