| Once: One of those exceptions to Phony's law. Both and the game and the pun are underwhelming. Can we extract anything interesting from this? Maybe. This is the crunch position: Black has just played 22. Rd8-e8 
click for larger viewI imagine that white probably stared at that Nd7 for a fair while. Why has black just taken away the protection for that knight? On d8, the black rook was covering the knight. Then the stepped to one side leaving the knight to its fate. So what gives? You can almost hear the cogs and gears grind and clang as white tries to work this one out. He figures that black must have moved the rook to e8 for a reason. Ah, I see it! 23. Qxd7 Rxe3 24. Rxe3 Qxc1 25. Kf2 Bxe4 
click for larger viewYeuck. White is already a piece down and is now about to lose his pinned rook. It would be at this point that white notices that he has used up a lot of time calculating 23. Qxd7, which doesn't seem to work. He has to make a different move, and quickly. That's when he decides to play his queen back to the "safety" of d1 - quite possibly a move played in haste after burning so much time on 23. Qxd7. And we have all seen how that ended up.
The sad thing is that 23. Qxd7 does work, provided you stop the "he takes, I take" sequence at the right point. White would have been perfectly fine with 23. Qxd7 Rxe3 
click for larger viewAnd now either 24. Nf3 or 24. Nc2 would have kept a small edge for white. I suppose we ought to applaud black for mixing it up with 22...Re8. He gave white the chance to go wrong, and white took that chance with both hands. The other mystery in this game is why white didn't grab the d6 pawn when he had the chance. Maybe he was afraid that his knight would get stuck so far into the enemy position? | 
Kibitzing
