A Deep Dive into a Fascinating Chess Match

Hello everyone and welcome back to my chess blog. In my first ever post, I presented the OTB game (below), and claimed it was unique as it sacrificed a knight in three different ways. After some extra analysis, I have realized this game has many more layers to it.

In this blog post, we will explore these layers, some simple tactics, and others pure madness!

The game:  

Key Moment #1: Can you find the winning move for White?

Yep you guessed it. Qxd5! Not too hard to find, but the player with White misses it. Black, instead of defending the pawn, plays f6, making Qxd5 a fork. However, white plays Qh6, and the game continues. Onto the next key moment.

Key Moment #2: "The immortal Knight"

From moves 19-22, the knight on e5 is hanging. 

Looking at this flashy sequence from an objective lense though, this series of moves wasn't that accurate. After the simple 22. Nf6, White is forced to trade knights and has horrible pawn structure, a weak king. and no attack.

Key Moment #3: Critical Turning Point

On move 25, White has just played h5, trying to create some sort of attack.  Black in this position finds the ultra-precise d4, hitting the rook, and threatening to open the d-file.

 Black in this position finds the ultra-precise d4, hitting the rook, and threatening to open the d-file. Black then plays Qb7, defending the h7 square. After a tricky move played by White, Bg2, attempting to deflect the queen away from the 7th rank, Black missed a beautiful win. Can you find it?

Instead, Black moved his queen out of the way. From here, white played an extremely interesting idea. Let's see if you can find it. 

Hint: Blockade the d pawn and try to checkmate the enemy king.

Whew! That was a tough find. Somehow White found this in the real game. That sequence resulted in a tense and complex endgame, which I also do not understand so I can't cover it.

Well that's all for this post. See you in the next one!