Saving move for black (I missed it today OTB)

Sort:
Avatar of robtaussig

So I was playing in a tournament. A win would earn me $60. I'm black, and playing the guy in second place. I was up a rook after a tactical blunder on his part, but in the following position, I thought it was lost, and out of respect I resigned. Well, turns out the resignation was the biggest blunder of the game. Can you spot the saving moves to stop the Be6++ (without sacrificing your queen)?

Avatar of robtaussig
Fiveofswords wrote:

no offense but this was actually pretty simple...however i wanted to play 4..Kc7 just to try and get the other rook in the game....does white really have a mate after this? show it please.


No offense taken. I'm new to OTB, so I still get a bit nervous. I looked at my three active pieces, and noted "my bishop can't do anything, since the bishop will just take it and the threat is the same," and "my queen can take the bishop, but be retaken by the queen, and I don't feel like playing a game OTB down a queen," and "my rook can only threaten the queen, but that won't matter when he mates me with his bishop." My d5 pawn was blocking my bishop etc etc. I instantly discounted checking his king, because that seemed a bit petty (my first mistake in thought). If my goal was to prolong the game as much as possible (by checking his king first), I probably would have accidentally found the saving moves, but he was an elderly man who was literally on the edge of his seat smiling at this turn of events.

As for white's mate, I don't think he has a forced mate, but as you can see from my ability to blunder (if you can call resigning such), then I'm sure he could have found something:)

Avatar of robtaussig

And you are correct, Kc7 is better. I didn't get that far, so I didn't think hard about that last move.

Avatar of robtaussig

Well, you may find it easy, but I obviously missed it when the stakes were on the line. I know this sounds kind of funny to claim after showing this game, but I consider myself at least somewhat strong in tactics (1800 in TT). I usually screw up the end games or make silly sacrifices early on that don't pan out.

But yeah, the second I looked at the game afterwards, I saw this escape, and I smiled in self-pity.

Avatar of robtaussig

At tonydal,

Great catch. That makes me feel slightly better about losing when at best I should have drawn (with good play by opponent).

At Fiveofswords,

I know exactly what you mean. I stayed behind to watch some other players go over their games. I was surprised by how many winning moves ("winning" may be too strong a term) I saw that weren't made, and they theoretically had 3 minutes to think of each one. Maybe I should play standing up:)