TL Chess match II - Page 42

Rex6?

I lost interest for a few moves, thinking it'll be a draw. Now that looks like a great result for white, black is ahead on pawns and has a better position. White needs to be careful to even draw.

Edit: well, I think now that he played f3, as opposed to getting the other rook involved first, a draw is not that hard to get.

hmm...Any chance we're getting crushed? I think if kg2 then Rf8 and we can't stop the pawn.

Bf1?

I can't help but feel black had this won but hurried it by playing that f3 prematurely.

Only choice we have. If 33... Rbf8, then 24. Bf1. Good queenside attack, active rook attacking a pawn, and a potentially active knight.
If 33. Kf1, then our king will be passive, and our bishop would still be doing nothing.

Black likely responds with 33...Rbf8, 34. Bf1 stops the pawn

Here black has 2 options to continue his attack:

- 34..g4. This gets stopped very quickly by 35. Ne4, followed by Rxc6 next move regaining our pawn

- If 34.. h4, we still play Ne4, but with best defence we cannot take the pawn yet because this indirectly loses the knight which now sits on c3.. In fact when previously analyzing this variation I missed black's resources after h4. To me it looks like black has now gained equality i.e. ba6 was a mistake