Post mortems

Just had the idea to do post mortems of games in a forum for convenient future reference.  We have one game that will need one soon!

De mortuis nil, nisi bene

Seems the time for the awaited post mortem is about to happen.

Some here say they may have had a little help, which is not out of the question, imo.

Otherwise, we blew it, I guess.

Their vote counts were fairly low, I note.

Whatever is decided by the rest of the Club, I will readily go along with.

Vote Chess here anyway requires better players than me, but I have enjoyed being part of it.

The Intellectual Chess Players Club has a great Vote Chess record.

Never quite got round to doing the game that motivated this forum. There is still time!

But here is our last game, which ended prematurely, but satisfactorily. We ended the game with a big positional advantage when they timed out.

We messed up badly at the end of our last vote chess game (and by 'we' I very much include me), despite the fact that our opponents had had a remarkable 9 'great moves' according to the computer review. We still had one chance to save it because they slipped on move 48.

Our opponents had a sizeable advantage for the last part of the game, but probably not enough to be resignable, and they proved this by making a mistake just before the end allowing us to equal it. We then blundered by missing the best move, to leave them clearly winning for the first time in the game. Ironically, @Axorcist even considered the one drawing move, but had the wrong follow-up, missing the drawing line. So we resorted to an 'interesting' alternative that didn't actually work.

I feel this blunder may have been the result of an insufficiently positive attitude right at the end. We should have stayed open to the possibility of a draw until things became clear.

Our rare loss against Holland could be said to have resulted from us missing a brilliant move (computer review gives it two "!"s) but there was also the earlier point where we had the choice between f3 and f4. While huntwabow initally advocated f4 we all turned against it as it seemed it lost a good pawn.

We slipped up, perhaps by missing the simple recapture with the pawn before the bishop on g4. Duh!

Our win against Holland was indeed a very good game! It is interesting how inadequate the Stockfish game review tool is for analysing a game of this quality. For example the Qc8 we played (inspired by the same idea in a different position) was too deep for the engine. It views it as an error, but at the end of its own best line, further analysis finds the position is fine for black. And at the very end of the game, the tool gives us less than 2 pawns advantage. Deeper analysis finds it is a decisive > 5 pawns.

It may be that we were a bit inaccurate by playing h5 late in the game, giving white a bit of counterplay, but it was never going to be enough. And the review is simply wrong to suggest d4 right at the end was an inferior move - our opponents were correct to see our finish was clear and their resignation was more perceptive than the software.

Stockfish in lichess gives Qc8 a ?!, playing subtle moves for White before pushing the central pawns.

Our mistake apparently was A5?!, we underestimated their kingside attack