Mega-dog Game #26 (thegreatauk - HolographWars)

OK.

Thanks Martin0. Time warnings were called by thegreatauk at moves 7, 17, 19, and here which is the 4th.

Too bad to see HolographWars lose on time. Black probably would have continued 22...Qxe7 making the difference knight vs. witch. Would have been fun to see the game continued.

I hope everything is OK with HolographWars. He also has not replied to his invitation to the #4 candidates tournament. (It's been 4 days).

In any case congratulations to thegreatauk for the win. Well-played game, except for Holograph's absences.

The extra piece should be good enough for auk here, but it's close.

White has just played Nf2 (from d3), which opens up an attack on the knight,. which in turn threatens to remove the defender of the d6 square, but the retreat to f2 is not very active.  White instead has Nxe5, attacking the queen. After Nxe5 or fxe5, now Bxb5 and white has just grabbed a pawn, since black does not have time to capture the bishop due to Nd6+.

18.Nxe5 Nxe5 19.Bxb5 Qc7 and how would white deal with both the guard and bishop being attacked?

Qc7 is good, well spotted.

Well my plan was to trade my B for holo's N and then play d4 to neutralize the witch a bit.

Maybe...

18. Nxe5 Nxe5 19. f4...  

Doesn't work either as black has 19... Qxf4. Yeah 18. Nxe5 looks like a blunder, but only because of 19... Qc7, which is a difficult move to find. I missed the attack on the guard.

One more try...

18. Nxe5 Nxe5 19. d4 Ng6 20. d5... this looks kinda promising. White has given up a knight for this attack so needs something in return, but the witch is under pressure and the threat of Nd6+ is still something black needs to keep an eye on.

However, 

18. Nxe5 fxe5 and I'm not seeing an obvious continuation for white.