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Superfraggle · 03-07-2023, 09:03 PM

Really interesting endgame in the second round of the main tournament between 72UCI and ShadowB0205 (Iowa_Flames_Fan). Shadow got himself a decent positional advantage out of the midgame with the black pieces (although with equal material, a 3 point advantage from Stockfish only counts if you find the right moves.

Trading down to queens and rooks with a passed pawn two squares from promotion swung things even further in Shadow's favour, but converting the position still requires very precise play and a couple inaccuracies on moves 27 and 28 led to a queen trade and evening up of the position, as 72UCI's rook was able to defend and his king was closer to offer assistance.

After a pawn trade, Shadow has another passed pawn back on its home position, with his king close by to support, but white's rook owns the B-file, preventing the king from getting there. One more inaccuracy on move 42 gives a tempo back to 72UCI and allows them to create their own passed pawn halfway down the board and take over the initiative and the advantage, but rook vs. rook endgames are HARD. Inaccuracies on moves 47 and FIFTY create a situation where Shadow gets to trade off the rooks and his king is in time to prevent the queen.

At this point, the players agree to a draw, but looking ahead this game could have taken another 30 turns to reach that conclusion. With black's passed pawn on the A file, white's king would have been in time to catch it only by abandoning its own pawn, and then it's down to a 2v2 pawn battle on the opposite side of the board. I actually thought at this point that Shadow would have been in time to block white's king and take the pawns, but Stockfish is giving it only a 0.8 advantage to black, which suggests that a draw would very likely have been the outcome regardless.

I was watching this one with a lot of interest as it progressed, and the wild swings of advantage did not disappoint. Both players had opportunities to win which required very precise play and slipped away quickly to seemingly innocuous inaccuracies.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/482068547

03-07-2023, 09:03 PM	#228
Superfraggle First Line Centre Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Calgary Exp:	Really interesting endgame in the second round of the main tournament between 72UCI and ShadowB0205 (Iowa_Flames_Fan). Shadow got himself a decent positional advantage out of the midgame with the black pieces (although with equal material, a 3 point advantage from Stockfish only counts if you find the right moves. Trading down to queens and rooks with a passed pawn two squares from promotion swung things even further in Shadow's favour, but converting the position still requires very precise play and a couple inaccuracies on moves 27 and 28 led to a queen trade and evening up of the position, as 72UCI's rook was able to defend and his king was closer to offer assistance. After a pawn trade, Shadow has another passed pawn back on its home position, with his king close by to support, but white's rook owns the B-file, preventing the king from getting there. One more inaccuracy on move 42 gives a tempo back to 72UCI and allows them to create their own passed pawn halfway down the board and take over the initiative and the advantage, but rook vs. rook endgames are HARD. Inaccuracies on moves 47 and FIFTY create a situation where Shadow gets to trade off the rooks and his king is in time to prevent the queen. At this point, the players agree to a draw, but looking ahead this game could have taken another 30 turns to reach that conclusion. With black's passed pawn on the A file, white's king would have been in time to catch it only by abandoning its own pawn, and then it's down to a 2v2 pawn battle on the opposite side of the board. I actually thought at this point that Shadow would have been in time to block white's king and take the pawns, but Stockfish is giving it only a 0.8 advantage to black, which suggests that a draw would very likely have been the outcome regardless. I was watching this one with a lot of interest as it progressed, and the wild swings of advantage did not disappoint. Both players had opportunities to win which required very precise play and slipped away quickly to seemingly innocuous inaccuracies. https://www.chess.com/game/daily/482068547 Last edited by Superfraggle; 03-08-2023 at 12:10 PM.