Last night I was up against Rob McDonald in the final of the Knockout competition. Unlike my previous couple of matches, we managed to decide the match in the first game; I won with the White pieces to win the competition.
The game started with a solid Bogo-Indian Defence. I adopted an aggressive set-up against it, castling queenside and attacking Black’s pawn on h7. When my opponent attacked my knight on g5, rather than retreating it, I forced his king to h8 with a check and then simply left it en prise; it remained there for 13 moves, before finally moving back on move 25. The position was roughly balanced, until I made and unwise swap of bishops; my opponent found a strong response, and my position became critical. Rather than accepting an inferior and probably lost position, I decided to a sacrifice a pawn; fortunately for me this worked, as my opponent slipped with a bishop retreat that allowed me to force the win of a piece. Play went into an endgame, but this was easily won, and in fact my opponent allowed me to force mate by trapping his king in the middle of the board.
I give the game below with some notes.