Sunday, 15 April 2007

Edinburgh Chess Congress: final day



My final day at the Edinburgh Chess Congress didn't go according to plan. In the morning I had been defending all game as Black against David Findlay (FIDE 2231), when we reached the position above. Best now is probably to play 18 ... Bxc5 19 Nxc5 Ng6; 20 Nxb7 Qxg3 and attempt to hold the ending with a pawn for the exchange down. Instead I saw the opportunity to try for more, and risked 18 ... Qb6. But, after the follow up 19 c3 Nxc5; 20 Qxe5 f6 can you work out how White forced a decisive material advantage?

In the afternoon, I played the opening horribly, but managed to hold the material level and scramble a draw. Overnight leader FM Richard Jones was held to a draw on Sunday morning, and looked to be in trouble in the afternoon when I left.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Roger - as no-one seems to have had a go yet, and I don't see the answer posted...I'll take a stab at this

It seems obvious that we need to start with Nxf6+ Bxf6; then it took me a little while. I wanted to make Rxf6 gf; Qxf6 work, but couldn't against e5....so my next try was to take advantage of the h5-e8 diagonal by taking on f6 then playing Qh5, hittinh the rook on e8 and the h7 pawn - I'm sure this is winning (though a little messy) BUT there is a claeaner win in playing Bxh7+ as the fopllow-up..this wins everyth9ing with check..

So final answer Nxf6+ Bxf6; (if gxf then Qh5 wins) Bxh7+ Kxh7; Qh5+ Ke8; Qxe8+ and with a rook lift imminent this is all over (though actually I haven't won any material yet!)

Roger Coathup said...

Paul,

spot on as usual!

Unbelievably we were both quite short on time after just 18 moves (time control was 30 in 90 minutes). I think I had about 10 minutes to go, and David about 15.

When I played 18 ... Qb6 I'd seen as far as ... Bxf6 and thought I was (amazingly) doing ok, unfortunately I overlooked Bxh7+ picking up the rook on e8, and the bits c5 and c8 are also ripe to be harvested.

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