Quote:
Originally Posted by mrkajz44
Things did get interesting at move 25. I offered a queen trade with 25...Qb6, but it was declined and all the focus was on those pawns sitting on the fourth rank. I think both my opponent and I had the exact same issue - we could start a set of captures that would net us winning material, with the small downside of giving up a bankrank checkmate. I will admit that I did eye that b2 pawn but was afraid of getting caught upboard with the d4 pawn in the way of a retreat. Stockfish says "go for it!" (taking b2 when Supperfraggle wanted me to in order to trap my queen) since I could put similar pressure on their queen with Rxd4. Needless to say, I didn't see that, but played the safe game only capturing b2 after my retreat diagonal was no longer blocked by the pawn.
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Good write-up. Always interesting to see what the other side was thinking. I didn't mind the idea of a queen trade at move 25, but didn't like that it would end with my knight being forced to move. I wanted to wait to do it on my terms.
With respect to the queen trap, it's funny how an idea gets stuck in your head sometimes. When I worked it out initially, the e pawn hadn't been moved to d4 yet, so I didn't see Rxd4 as a threat. After the move was made, it didn't register with me at all that this was no longer the case.
The game review shows things as ridiculously even throughout, aside from a couple blips. Both of us got a 92.6 accuracy rating overall, broken down as:
Opening 93.5 - 93.5
Middlegame 88.6 - 88.7
Endgame 95.4 - 95.5
mrkajz44 does get credit for 5 great moves, to my 0, but I'm telling myself that it's just because I gave him hard choices where he had to make exactly the right move.
The engine was so unconvinced of my advantage in the endgame that 57. g5 is given a rating of excellent, despite hanging a full pawn. The eval goes from 0.12 for white to flat 0.00, but I think anything that doesn't straight up hang my rook probably would have gotten the engine's approval there.