YouRang: A well-played game overall, until black made a couple blunders. First, a serious blunder and later a deadly blunder. The serious blunder happened on move 59 [diagram:black to move]
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Black's g-pawn is a goner, but black can at least have some say about the resulting position after it's gone. He could play 59...Rh8!, so that he can give check from a distance and guard against promotions. If white then proceeds with 60.Rxg2, then Rf8+! 61.Kg1 Bxg2 62.Kxg2 Rf4 [diagram]
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White's e-pawn will fall, and with the the rook keeping the white K away from the pawns, black should have no trouble holding a draw. Or if white pushes the b or c pawn, black has ...Rf8+, forcing the king away, and keeping white's rook tied to stopping the g-pawn, and again black should hold. However, black instead played the inferior <59...Rh4?>, evidently thinking that <60.Rxg2 Bxg2> [diagram] would be followed by 61.Rxd4.
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But Rh4 was bad for two reasons:
(1) The rook is too close to give check (60...Rf4+? 61.Ke3! and the white K and N are well-positioned to push the 3 passed pawns to glory). (2) The rook at h4 is in position to be forked, as seen in the game continuation: <61.Nf5+! Kxe6 62.Nxh4 Be4> and now white has a knight and a connected pair of passed pawns vs. a bishop. The white king and knight can get into position to help push pawns. It continued <63.Ke3 Kd5 64.Nf3 Bg6 65.Nd4 Kc4 66.c6 Be8 67.b5 Kc5 68.Ke4> [diagram]
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Even here, black can hold the draw by keeping pressure on the pawns and preventing white's K from advancing. This would most effectively be done with 68...Kd6, and then white has nothing better than 69.Kf5 Bf7 70.b6 Bd5 71.c7 Bb7 and white can make no more progress. But then came the deadly blunder: <68...Bh5??> giving white's c-pawn a free pass: <69.c7! Bg4> and then came the simple reply that black obviously overlooked: <70.Nf5! 1-0>. |