When the clearly obvious move isn't the best move!

Regular readers of my blog will know that I was hoping to try out the Sicilian as Black last weekend at the Imperial College Congress in London. Sadly it didn't work out as in my two games as Black I faced 1.d4

The good news is that I did in fact manage to win the tournament 1st= with 4.5/5. Tournament results can be seen here: https://union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/chess/2013/02/2013-iccc-open/

There was one point of interest however as in my crucial round 4 enounter against another IM I almost threw away my chances with some poor play. 

My biggest mistake was not down to miscalculating or lack of understanding but purely the fact that I played an 'obvious move' without much thought, only to realise later that it was actually a serious mistake. Fortunately my opponent went wrong as well and I managed to win, anyway have a look for yourself!

I've annotated this part of the game and tried to explain my thoughts on why I played 41.Rb7? but the honest answer is that it just looked right!

The lesson to be learned is that in a critical position like this you must calculate concrete variations if you can rather than being lazy and playing the obvious move. 80% of the time the obvious move may be the best move but that still leaves 20% of your moves!

It's only a short blog today, I'll see you later this month...