The Illusion

Hello and welcome to all! Today I am going to show you two games where the winning side has an 'illusion' or a false certainty of some kind that something is/is not there.

In the first game that I am going to show you (which I saw in an IM Silman post), Black was Joshua'Josh'Waitzkin, a brilliant endgame player, who, as far as I know, focused more on endings than on any other phase of the game.

Here, the evaluation of the position, maybe, is -/+. White just played 32.Qf2, not realising that now the Rook is not protected by the Queen, and is left en prise. But...

Anyhow, Black went on to win the game. But the consequences of the 'illusion' in the next game were much, much more disastrous.

Here, I was Black and thought I had an easy win...

So, the moral here is that if you find yourself trapped in a situation like mine, try to visualize the board from your opponent's point of view!

Note: Both the games were annotated by me.

Thanks!