As I was defeated in round one of the main knockout, I ended up in round two of the plate competition, along with all the other first round losers. I was paired against Matthew Forster, one of the club’s most promising juniors, and we played our game last night.
He played rather passively with White and I was able to win with a direct attack on his king. I give the game below with some notes.
Black could win on move 25 by ….Qxh2+ 26. Kxh2 Rh6+ 27. Kg1 Rh1 ++
Good spot!
I’m not sure whether I’m more annoyed to have missed it during the game or afterwards! Not only is this a standard kind of combination, but also one I have played myself more than once.
When I played 23…Rad8, it was with the idea that after 24 Qc1, White could not then played 25 Ne1 next in view of 25…Rd1 and if 26 Qb2, then 26…Rxe1 and 27…Qh3, forcing mate. So when I played 24…Rd6, my idea was that the threat of 25…Rh6 would provoke 26 Ne1 allowing 26…Rd1. I simply failed to look at any other possibilities! This illustrates the danger of becoming fixated with one element of the position.
I normally go over my games using a computer afterwards to check for any such blinds spots, but for some reason I must have skipped checking that move. Possibly the fact that I had not suspected there was a combination during the game led me not to look for it afterwards? To be honest, I was more interested in whether 21…Bf3 was stronger than 21…Nf3+, but I really should have caught 25…Qxh2+ as well!