a bit surprising that a 2465-player has that much difficulties in the technical phase of this game.

i watched this game live and it was quite exciting whether black can make it or not. the last pawn move was on move 84., so move 134. was the critical 50-move-margin, and she did it just in time.

for me its always instructive to have a closer look at technical endgames, so here some remarks:

first the position after whites 79.Ra8

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here black has the natural 79...Kg5, hiding the king at h4, driving the white king back and pushing the pawns forward. with 79...h4 she made her life considerably harder.

the method to drive back the white king in these kind of positions is always the same and worthwhile remembering. lets consider a position like this, black to move:

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first ...Rd4 to protect from sidechecks, then g3 and kg4, threatening to push the h-pawn, that forces white to leave the second rank with his rook, and then check on the second rank.

next the position after whites 86.Kg2. here black had the chance to get 86...Rf2+ 87.Kg1 Rh2, resulting in

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in a position like that white cannot stop black from reaching h3 with his king. black simple marches over to f3 with his king and plays his rook to a2 (if white tries Re8 then Rd2 (threatening h3) Rh8 Ke3 Rxh4 Kf3), thus forcing white to check from behind and going with his rook to the first rank, reaching

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now black has the above mentioned standard-method, but he has to be a bit careful cause of stakemate-tricks, so 1...Ra3 2.Rc1 g2 3.Rb1 Rf3 (not 3...Kg3 4.Rb3+ draw) 4.Ra1 Kg3 5.Ra3 h3

a real "killer" for black was 96...Ke2 allowing white to setup a good defence with 97.Kg2, whereas 96...Ke3 would have stopped this, due to 97.Re2+

surely a lot of nervous tension

after looking at the position after 30...Rxd3 for some time without finding an convincing continuation, i (sadly) fired up my comp and he told me that after 31.Rg1 Qf3+ 32.Kf1 g6 33.Qb6 Kh8 its completely over for white.

thats a technique (often seen in GM games) which hasnt entered yet my brain (and obviously not Socko's too):

if your opponent has a threat in connection with a check (here maybe 34.Rxg6+ or, probably more seriously, 36.Qe6+), don't defend against the threat, defend against the check