Endgame | Know this BACK RANK MATE pattern!

#TwoKnightsDefense #ItalianGame 

This was a relatively tough positional game of the Italian.  My opponent with White took the game down the Two Knights, Modern Bishop's Opening line (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3), which is one of my least favourite to play against!  It's simply very solid, and White takes the game down a closed, positional setup, which I don't like very much.

Luckily for me, I managed to do okay, with my opponent generally make more mistakes in the middle game.  However, although I was ahead, I never got a sense of capturing the lead and we eventually ended up in the late middle game largely drawn - with equality in not only material, but also piece balance and pawn positions.

The one imbalance was that we had opposite-side castled, and my pawns were further advanced against White's position.  On move 31, White made a move that Stockfish didn't think was immediately terrible but created a long-term weakness if White didn't play extremely accurately.  White pushed the pawn in front of their king (31. g3).  I knew that this was bad, but I didn't necessarily see how to exploit this immediately.

Interestingly in the Stockfish evaluation, White's subsequent moves which weren't accurate were seen as serious blunders (worse than [-7]), but I didn't see this in the game either.

However, on move 39, with less than 2 minutes left on the clock (against my opponent's plentiful 7 minutes), I finally saw the significance of the light square weaknesses.  With White's king's defensive pawns all on dark squares, a bishop on the long light square diagonal effectively traps the king on the back rank, but it might not be immediately obvious if you weren't looking for this.  And when the king is trapped on the back rank, we, of course, have the opportunity for back rank checkmate!

I next make four consecutive bishop moves, to manoeuvre the bishop into the correct square, while avoiding capture.  White didn't see what I was trying to do, and on move 42, blunders mate in two.  My rook advances to the back rank, check; opponent is forced to block with their rook as a desperate delay for a single turn; capture, and mate! GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/66874200813