I'm being stupid. Yes we can block with Qd6.5, I hadn't noticed that. Going on a delete post frenzy!
No worries! You're not stupid. It's easy to miss that. I didn't even see we had ...Qd6.5 at first and I made a lot of miscalculations (that I didn't post yet so I just deleted that analysis before I could post it).
It's still dead lost.
8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxa7... wins rook, a7 and b7, while threatening knight+bishop with Qxb8+, and Qxc7, winning queen. We can't handle both these treats, and he probably has more after.
So we're losing rook, knight, bishop and two pawns, or rook, queen and two pawns. At least.
Disaster.
There's nothing stopping him except his own integrity. I have a lot of trust in Martin, but obviously it's the internet and you can never be certain.
We can always take this chat to discord in future, but I don't see the point.
I trust that Martin would not do that while the game is still ongoing.
No doubt he'll check in once the game is declared over, which is imminent.
Of course when the game is over he may look at our analysis (I don't know if we have technically already accepted the draw yet or if the game is still ongoing).
Martin is too much like me, he wants to win by being better. It's the same risk we take when we play online chess, there's engines and tablebases that can assist people, and if they're smart about it they'll get away with it. But they're only cheating themselves.
I consider the game over. It's a shame we were screwed by the events, both events were interesting but our opening was just terrible for these events. Of course we can't know that, I don't think the Grunfeld is always bad in event chess, but I'd be cautious about using it in future.
This opening was employed as a reaction to the previous event, where pins were a problem. You just can't know how to set up your position.
I'm not sure what happens after 8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxa7 Qxh2 (winning the rook on h1 and the pawn on g2).
Of course after 8...Qd6.5 if Martin doesn't wanna enter the tactical mess then he could just play it safe and play 9. Qxd7+ (trading queens and winning the c7 pawn). Then he has a safe extra pawn and better bishops than us.
Sorry my bad now it's my turn to mess up! I keep forgetting that we have a pawn on e5, so the black queen can't go from d6.5 to h2 (from d6 to h2). What I just said in the previous post is wrong.
Yeah it's easy to forget we played e5
We would have exd4 though, which opens up the threat of Qxh2, but I don't think we have time for this as there are far too many threats on our queenside.
That is correct. After 8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxa7 exd4 10. Qxb8 (pushing the c8 bishop to d8) if we play 10...Qxh2 then 11. Qxd8 is mate (the black king gets pushed to f8.
After 8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxa7 the b8-knight is threatened and I don't think we can save it without trading queens (so 9...Qb6 is not an option).
After 9...exd4 10. Qxb8 maybe black could just play 10...0-0 and maybe white has some problems defending h2. If 10. g3 then 10...dxe3 threatens ...Qd1#.
But I think white has something much stronger: 9...exd4 10. Ba3. It threatens the black queen and prevents black from castling.
9...exd4 10. Ba3 c5 and white can just trade queens with 11. Qxd7+.
9...exd4 10. Ba3 Nc6 and white can simply trade queens with 11. Bxd6.
9...exd4 10. Ba3 Qxh2 11. Bcd4.5+ Kd8 12. Qxb8# (the bishop on c8 dies).
9...exd4 10. Ba3 Qxh2 11. Bcd4.5+ c6 is illegal because 12. Qe7 would capture black's king.
9...exd4 10. Ba3 Qxh2 11. Bcd4.5+ Bd7 12. Qxb8#
9...exd4 10. Ba3 Qxh2 11. Bcd4.5 Nd7 12. Qxc7+ (captures the bishop on c8 and the d7-knight is moved to e7; 12...Qxc7 is illegal) with 13. Qd8 and mate to follow soon.
If black plays almost any other queen move besides 10...Qxh2 after 9...exd4 10. Ba3 then maybe either 11. Qc5 or 11. Qxb8 would be strong (11. Qc5 threatens mate on e7).
9...Nc6 runs into 10. Qc5 and the knight on c6 dies and white is offering an exchange of queens.
After 9...Na6 10. Bxa6 Bxa6 (we don't wanna play 10...Qxa6 and trade queens; it doesn't matter that 10...Qxa6 pushes the white queen to a8) white has 11. Qab7.5+ (pushing the a6-bishop to a5, since the white queen could occupy a7) 11...Ke7 and 12. Qxc7 wins the black queen (since it could occupy d7).
After 9...Na6 10. Bxa6 Bxa6 11. Qab7.5+ blocking with the queen would just trade queens, or maybe even lead to mate.
9...Na6 10. Bxa6 0-0 is just completely lost for us since we are down waaay too much material. Maybe a simple 11. Qc5 would be good here (offering a trade of queens).
9...Qg4 is not possible because g4 is covered by the bishop on cd4.5.
9...0-0 might be best here, but the position is really hopeless.
Even if I have missed something after 8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxa7 I still 100% agree that we should accept the draw, since white even has 8. Qab3.5+ Qd6.5 9. Qxd7+, winning the pawn on c7 and trading queens. With no queens we're just down a pawn in a worse position with no chances of winning.
If we don't accept the draw then at best we'd struggle to get a draw with no winning chances, but much more likely we'd just get absolutely destroyed.
Queens are insanely powerful with the combination of these 2 events. I don't think they could get any more powerful. I mean just imagine an empty board with a queen on de4.5 and think about all the squares (and half-squares) it could go to. Now with the Queen Bullies event they are much more powerful.
It doesn't really feel like we did any bad moves. We just got incredibly unlucky with the events.
"But I think white has something much stronger: 9...exd4 10. Ba3. It threatens the black queen and prevents black from castling."
Yeah I saw this, and wished I saw it before we played e5, because perhaps e5 was bad on the basis of Ba3. If we'd castled last move, we wouldn't have been killed by this event.
And yes the queens are absolute beasts. They were already, but even more so now. The only hope of somehow winning this game is if we can keep the queens on the board, but I couldn't see any way of doing that without being checkmated, and frankly I'm done spending time analysisng this now, I've been neglecting other games.
Pretty sure we've already accepted the draw, but even if it's not official yet I don't think we should even consider continuing this game. Better would be to start a new game against Martin, if he's willing, which I assume he is due to him kindly offering to draw this off.
After 8. Qab3.5+ I think I technically missed 8...Bde6.5, but I did look at 8...Bd7 (but I don't think I posted it), which turns out to be illegal because 9. Qe7 captures the king. But I thought 9. Qxd7+ would be good enough for white after 8...Bd7 (trading queens and winning a piece).
If we play 8...Bde6.5 then 9. Qxd7+ still wins a piece and trades queens. White is up a piece and the position is hopeless for black.
Yeah I still think it's hopeless, it's just that blocking with the bishop means the queen defends the knight. There are still many threats though, even Qb7 grabs the c7 pawn and opens up the 7th rank, causing us yet more problems. I'll be glad to get another game started so I can forget about this one!
I thought the queen occupied all the square it's standing on? So on d6.5 the queen both occupies d6 and d7 and therefore the a3-f8 diagonal is blocked (by the queen on d6), so white can't play Qe7. See Martin's example 4 of "Occupying Multiple Squares event" where the bishop on c1 can't move to h6 because of the queen on fg3.5.