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ANNOTATED GAME
When You Have to Win
yttrio (1650) vs. driss (1527)
Annotated by: yttrio (1533)
Chess opening: French (C10), Paulsen variation
yttrio (1650) vs. driss (1527)
Annotated by: yttrio (1533)
Chess opening: French (C10), Paulsen variation
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50... Re4+ |
Giving up the pawn, but avoiding the tactics I mentioned before. | |||||||
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51. Kxd5 Re1 |
My opponent now has plans of moving his rook behind my passed pawn. The way the board sits, it should probably be a draw. The main reason I kept on playing was because I needed the win. I saw that it would be hard for me to lose the position, so I kept trying to find the forced win, even though there really isn't one in this position. | |||||||
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52. Kc4 |
My idea behind this move was to somehow win his pawn on a5 after getting my king to b5. After the game, I later discovered that I should have instead played 52) Bf6. The plan behind putting the bishop on f6 would be to put the bisop on d5 and the king on e6. The most likely continuation would be 52) ... Rh1 [getting behind my passed pawn] 53) Ke6 Re1 54) Be5 Be7 [the only move to stop checkmate] 55) Rxa5. This would win a pawn for me and give me a better shot at winning the game. I think that a lot of the reason why I didn't see 52) Bf6 was because I was looking for a direct way to win. Piling up pieces on a5 is the direct way to win the pawn. However, black should still be able to pull off a draw in this position. The only key difference between my position and black's position is that my king is active in the center, while his is pinned against the edge of the board. With this, I have a small advantage and can try to use it to win the game. Of course, the advantage is so small that the game should still technically be a draw. | |||||||
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52... Rh1 |
Putting his rook behind my passed pawn and creating an odd symmetry in the position. | |||||||
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53. Kd5 |
At this point in the game I realized that the king on e6 and the bisop on e5 was the correct idea. My mind had calmed down a little bit. However, I was still playing off of wishful thinking. | |||||||
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53... Be1 |
?? Black's costly blunder of the game. Although it doesn't look like a complete blunder at first glance (no material is lost and it attacks my h-pawn), there is a crucial element to the position that loses the game for black. White to move, mate in 5. | |||||||
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54. Ke6 |
! To be honest, I didn't see just how powerful this move was when I played it. It wasn't until I was looking at what to do for my 55th move that I found the win for white. Now it becomes clear why 53) ... Be1 was a serious blunder. Black's bishop blocks the checking square for black's rook! Black has only one move to avoid Ra8#, which he played. | |||||||
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54... Kf8 |
I looked at this position for a long time, calculating out possible lines for me. I looked at 55) Ra8 for the longest time. After the king moves to g7, I looked at 56) Bd6 . Unfortunately, black can survive with 56) ... Kg6. The king will be able to escape to h5 and g4. I also looked at 56) ... Kh7, and saw a win for white. Only after looking for a while did I find the winning move, and I started to get excited. | |||||||
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55. Bf6 |
!! The quiet bishop move that wins the game by force. Now black is forced to play 55) ... Kg8 to avoid Ra8#. | |||||||
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55... Kg8 |
Forced. | |||||||
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56. Ra8+ |
Only now do I give check with the rook. His king is now forced to go to h7... | |||||||
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56... Kh7 |
...and we've reached the position I looked at after 55) Ra8 Kg7 56) Bf6 Kh7. Had I not gone through all the lines of 55) Ra8 , I don't think I ever would have found this position, which I have forced by changing my move order. All it takes is one final nail in the coffin and black is done for. | |||||||
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57. Kf7 |
! One final exclaim. In the beginning of my final combination, his bishop stopped him from delievering check to my king. Now in the ending, my own bishop stops him from checking my king! At this point in the game black resigned, because there's nothing he can do to stop 58) Rh8#. There's a certain beauty surrounding my final combination. A checkmating net formed by a king, bishop, and rook. A net where there was a single checking move before the final checkmate. This brings up yet another theme: the threat is often stronger than the execution in chess. If you leave several threats hanging in the air, your opponent will have to try to defend all those threats. Once you grab on to one threat, though, your opponent no longer has to worry about many threats and can simply defend one. One final psychological theme out of many found in this game. Another note: the "need to win" was what caused my opponent to get back in the game, and it was also his downfall. My opponent acknowledged that he needed to keep his bishop and pawn connected, and the game would probably be a draw. However, he went for the "win" by attacking my pawn, not fully realizing the consequences. I hope you enjoyed reading this annotation, and I also hope you learned something from it. I hope you not only learned from the final combination, but also from the psychological themes that appeared in this game. Psychology is a huge part of chess, especially in over-the-board games. | |||||||
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