| Jul-16-23 | | Unstable Psychopath: 22. Rxa4!? White decides to play with some courage. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | al wazir: Incredible game. |
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| Jul-16-23 | | Brenin: An entertaining game, though I don't get the pun. I suppose both players are firing plenty of bullets at each other, but ... |
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Jul-16-23
 | | GrahamClayton: Red Adair was a famous American firefighter - hence the "fire" pun. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | HeMateMe: Hey, that's right! I remember reading about Red Adair when I was a kid. Did he put out oil rig fires? |
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Jul-16-23
 | | fredthebear: That's a fine answer Aussie! |
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| Jul-16-23 | | nalinw: Both players decided to play with courage ... makes for an incredible game |
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Jul-16-23
| | GrahamClayton: I'll fess up - I submitted this game for GOTD only yesterday, and was surprised to see it chosen straight away. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | offramp: This is a great game. The result certainly wasn't rigged. I remember that Red Adair (he was a ginger) was in charge of extinguishing oil rig fires, notably in Kuwait following Sadam Hussein's scorched sand retreat. For the men this was a very hazardous job: capping a fire means standing in a powerful jet of water as you place the cap in place. If the jet of water fails for less than second, the poor guy will be instantly vaporized. Harsh! Red Adair did not employ any women to cap oil-rig fires. Uncommon King's Pawn Opening (b00), B00!! Perhaps there was possibly a Kuwaiti female dress code. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | Sally Simpson: A superb find Graham.
Fred Reinfeld would have introduced it to his readers as two rum fuelled pirates trading cutlass blows high up in the rigging. I like this bit.
click for larger viewBlack is threatening a Queen and Bishop mate. White sacs a Bishop (Bf6+ And Qf7) to threaten their own Queen and Bishop mate. I recall Red Adair from the 1980's when he and his team successfully tackled the Piper Alpha disaster. |
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| Jul-16-23 | | goodevans: Putting out fire... with gasoline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9I...
Both players playing with courage indeed and great resourcefulness. Black might consider himself unlucky that for every resource he found White had an equal or better one. Were it not for 46.Bf6+ he might have survived this. Another one for my favorite games collection. |
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Jul-16-23
| | GrahamClayton: <Sally Simpson>
A superb find Graham.
<Sally Simpson>
Thank you - when I saw the final position, with Adair's bishop imprisoned by its own pawns, I thought that this game deserved to be GOTD. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | Check It Out: Great game, I played through it twice straight away. Aesthetically pleasing final position. |
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Jul-16-23
 | | Breunor: It looks like 34 ... e3, although really kind of cool, is the losing move. Bc3 appears to be even. |
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| Jul-17-23 | | goodevans: <Breunor> When I saw your post last night it was already past my bedtime so I decided to come back to it today to see why <34...Bc3> makes such a difference. Here's the position after that move:
click for larger viewIf 35.Rd1 then 35...e3 is devastating. Any other R move loses the R anyway (e.g. 35.Re3 f4 36.Rxc3 Ne2+) so White must accept that the R is doomed. Best then is <35.c5> to break the pin to which Black will respond <35...Qb5>. Now an exchange of Qs would put White's B en prise (in addition to the R) so White must retreat, <36.Qb3 e3 37.Qxc3> (only move) <37...Ne2+ 38.Rxe2 Qxe2>: 
click for larger viewWe reach a position where either side can at the very least force repetition if the other tries to press for a win. For instance, 39.Bb2 exf2+ 40.Kh2 Qxb2 41.Qxb2 f1=Q 42.Qd2 and there's no good way for Black to stop 43.Qg5+ Kh8 44.Qf6+, etc. Here's another example: 39.f3 Qf2+ 40.Kh2 e2 41.Qf6 Qe3 42.Bb2 Qf4+ 43.g3 Qxg3+ 44.Kxg3 e1=Q+ and this time it's Black that keeps checking to avoid defeat. So, not only 'even' but pretty much forcing a draw. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 22.Rxa4