Did you ever get a chance to do a deep analysis of 9...h6!? I haven't spent much time on it but I'm not convinced of its merits at this point.

Also I never quite did get over 8...Bb6 9.a4 a6 Which i still think is probably adequate for black and much more "fun" <some aggressive double edged lines> than 8...Bxb4 though you never agreed with me on that one. You supplied positions where white was winning but i found black avoids those positions with best play.

All this is a bit silly though I was replying to the variations you posted as reasons to avoid 8...Bb6 and simply did not realize the strength of 8.b5! which might be just as hard for black as game continuation I.e.

<Random Visitor> <6...Rf8 7.0-0 Qe8 8.b4>

<Probably because no one seems to have anywhere near the fervor in favor of 19...h6 leading to a draw that you and <kwid> (and possibly others) feel that 19...Rf6 leads to a draw.>

You sure got that right.
When I first proposed 19...h6
I said I thought it lost.
(not exactly a winning endorsement)

kwid and centralfiles seem to want to rewrite history.

They also don't take into account,
the real world and the psychology involved.

(I probably would have been a fan of
19...Rf6 had kwid not been on my team,
with him, I wanted to run from it.)

How ironic?
kwid's the reason 19...h6 happened,
kwid's the reason it lost so effortlessly.
(kwid was a big fan of 24...Rxe6,
our guaranteed draw)

(the real moment we were done)

You see part of the problem with move
...19 is you have some responsibility
what you play after it.

19...h6 was never in the mix of a better move or great move.

The only real questions are:

1 Does 19... Rf6 draw?
2 Is there a better move?

...and even if found to be true, it
has no relation to what we actually knew at the time, or who would have been convinced to vote for the best moves.

What we saw wasn't a failure of chess moves, but a failure of psychology.

<CharlesSullivan:>

If you look at the 1972 Fischer/Spassky match. He's done excellent work on many games with new computer analysis.

He seems to be a less verbose/better computer/ version of Ayler.

(Wow, you win on both sides of the equation :) )

Maybe he can be recruited for some testing?

Am i too brazen If i can ask you to point to a single instance of something i said that could be seen as rewriting history?

I never took any part in any kind of blame game I did not vote for 19...Rf6 myself, nor do i profess to see its merits without the benefit of millions of silicon transistors.

I am simply maintaining that post game it appears pretty clear that 19...Rf6 draws from a theoretical standpoint. I am happy to analyze other plausible alternatives as well.

If we had two private pages each which can be made to be accessible only to members of one team, then we can set up unofficial game ourselves.

However in absence of such pages it won't be possible to prevent teams from seeing each other's analysis.

Any suggestions?

Starting position should probably be here:

click for larger view

If a member of team white might be permitted to comment on a thread that has produced scores of pages of commentary, mostly about the mythic (unplayed) 19.. Rf6, I would observe that the players of team white have evidently gone away content, but that frustrated team black players continue to fight the good fight. No aspersion on the respective team members: if the result had been a draw no doubt team white members would be the ones here battling over what went wrong!

If you look at the 1972 Fischer/Spassky match. He's done excellent work on many games with new computer analysis.>

I'd like to follow <diceman> in urging people here to take a look at this poster's exemplary work.

Here is a link to the point in one particular game of the match mentioned where his analysis begins: Fischer vs Spassky, 1972 (kibitz #292),

and this is a later post in which he responds to my request for information about his methods and hardware: Fischer vs Spassky, 1972 (kibitz #303)

A few lines further down is my comment on what he told us. It is short enough to repost here:

<Tiggler: <CS> I appreciate your detailed answer. You should not be even <almost> embarrassed to have spent so long. I would be amazed if your, seemingly comprehensive, analysis in some cases had required less. I know you could not have done it so fast with any current engine without your own skill in forward and backward sliding, as you briefly indicated.