Should I feel accomplishment for winning this?

For awhile it's been a goal of mine to defeat a titled player.  I've drawn several in both correspondence and OTB, but I wanted to win one, so I started 3 correspondence games against titled players.

In one of the games against an FM, I reached a very imbalanced position that was very hard for me to evaluate.

One day I logged in and found he'd resigned.  I had the 2000 rated chess.com engine analyze the game, and in the end it said I was about 1.5 pawns up, but I honestly had no idea I was winning, and had he played on, I don't know if I'd have played well or not.

Here is the link to the game:  http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=75746184

Here is the position that he resigned in.  He was white.

What do you think, should I feel accomplisment over this unexpected win or not?

Oh, and 2 days later a different FM timed out on me, giving me my second win.  I don't feel accomplished over this game.

Congrats on your win, and you should be happy that you won. As far as feeling accomplished, I am not sure I follow you on that one.

 You are still young, it appears you are a gifted player as well, but you know where your gifts come from, don't forget that.

I am not sure why he would resign in the above posistion Perhaps he saw the end game from there, to me its still unclear, and a tough position to evaluate. I would need a good deal of time.

I do like your position because of gxh7+, or even gxf7+ and moving  your h rook  to f1, your e pawn can also possibly become a powerful passed pawn.

Unless he sacs the rook, for something I am missing. Which I don't think so, but, like I said, I need some time to check this out, its a tough position.

Not to mention, you are playing a titled player. Anyway congrats again, and maybe someone much stronger in evaluating positions will comment on this. Good luck.

I have heard that feeling from good players before but, in my humble opinion, it comes from always wanting to do better and achieve a mastery of the game.  Each step up the ladder affords a different view, enjoy each of them.  Think of all the things you have learned in life that you take for granted, but at the time you learned them, they were a big deal…because they are, they shape your dreams. Congratulations on achieving another goal (big one in my book). Don't take the chess Manna from heaven without first giving Him thanks.

Thanks for the replies.

Maybe I should have used different words to ask my question.

My goal was to defeat a titled player.  If a titled player lost on time after a few moves, I'd have won him, but it wouldn't really be defeating him, thus I wouldn't have achieved my goal.

Now I have it where I play a game, and suddenly my opponent resigns.  His resignation came as a shock to me because the position was so imbalanced I couldn't evaluate it.  So, did I really "defeat" him or not?

I'm now thinking I did.  Even though I didn't correctly evaluate the position, I played well enough to make a titled player (who doubtless evaluated the position better) resign.

Anyway, sorry for the somewhat vauge question and thanks for the answers :-)

How come you consistently missed the maneuver bxa2 followed by a3?  Pretty standard maneuver in the English attack, methinks...

Anyway, good game.  Congrats.  I think black is up at the end but there is no way I would resign as white (Rybka agrees with that assessment). 

Thanks!

I didn't know the idea of bxa2 followed by a3 was standard from this opening.  bxa2+ was a candidate move when it was possible.  I didn't play it because I just wasn't sure that it really helped me.  Earlier in the game I was sort of hoping he'd make a mistake and let me get something from bxc2+.  I didn't really want to commit the pawn one way or the other until I could see immediate gains.

"Earlier in the game I was sort of hoping he'd make a mistake and let me get something from bxc2+."

That's speed chess garbage that wins lots of fast games.  This was online, no? 

Yes, I have a bad habit of trying to give my opponent the biggest chance to blunder.  Instead I should try to play the best moves, regardless of how likely it is they'll blunder.

I hate guys like you because I usually give you what you want. 

Pardon me, I had the board turned around wrong, I liked your position better because of either bxa2+ or bxc2+. In addition your a rook could either stay there or shuffle to c8.

Possibly creating a very powerful passed d pawn, maybe even e pawn as well. Sorry about that, this is a correction to my above post. In addition I had an old program analyze this position as well, it went 10 moves deep, and you were a whole rook ahead and still had the possiblity of the passed d or e pawns. It stated your mobility was slightly lessened, and your pawn structure was a little weakened, because he gave up a knight for the g pawn, in some trades that happened, that was looking for white's chances.

The system recommended whites best move in the above position was rook to e1. Which I am not sure about that move.

It also recommended bxa2+, with a follow up after his king takes as Bd5+.

I am not sure if that is actually blacks best capture, you have a good position regardless.

I  didn't like some of the moves recommended. However, thats what my program came up with.

Possibly why your opponent resigned in the above position as well. Congratulations on achieving one of your goals. Also once again sorry for my confusing above post, I had the board backwards. Good luck on your future games, and goals.

A sort of interesting thing is that I popped that position into Rybka, waited my normal 10 seconds, and found that Rybka liked it 0.7 pawns or something better for black.  But then I let Rybka churn on it for 3 hours (inadvertantly) and Rybka started liking the position better by almost 2 pawns for black which puts it in the range that is probably resignable.

This is an old thread, but just in case you still have an interest in the problem, I am wondering...

did you actually ask your opponent why he resigned?

... judging by his photo and by his user name he was fairly young at the time of this game... it also looks as if he is nr. 48 in all Norway and nr. 2 of the under 16 ...

I asked, but didn't receive an answer.  I've resigned in positions I shouldn't have...

I had a quick look at the position myself (because you got me curious must say) and I read the comments and I must say I don't agree with your method (computer evaluations), first of all because your opponent wasn' t allowed to use an engine, so engines would never be able to explain why he resigned, second, I think there is a much quicker way of assessing this: my guess is your opponent realized he had lost the pawn on g4 (right?) ... possibly because he had overlooked something... and his position suddenly looked unpromising... you had an ongoing attack on the king side, he would loose a pawn and next he would have to displace his Knight... no use continuing... so to make a long tale short, I think you should appreciate this victory, and also consider the online rating of this young impressive player (otb) is relatively 'average', much lower than yours infact...