When I go over this game my sense of pride swells up way too much. I usually try to figure out how I could have lost my won games as a learning exercise, and usually this is not very hard to do. I like this game too much, however, so I need the public of RHP to tear me down to size. In short, where did white mess up? How is this not a perfetc game?
Nothing wrong with taking pride in a game well played. Your pieces were active and co-ordinated while the Black pieces just stood around and watched their King get mated. As far as humility, remember that this kind of victory (open lines and battery of Q+R hunting an exposed King) has been done thousands of times here at RHP, I even have a few myself. 🙂 It might seem to some people a bit vain to splash it around the forums.
Playing through the game the moment Black played Bxc3 giving
up his dark squared Bishop whilst yours was still on the board you
just knew there was going to be tricks on the dark squares.
Chess is not that rigid that you must never do this (Bxc3)
but it does need very careful consideration.
You cashed in well and spotted the critical shots.
Black's ...e5 was no great idea. You have a Sicilian Maroczy Bind by transposition. In such positions, B must never concede d5 uncontested. In this game, d6 fell immediately - as it would inevitably anyway - and ...Bxc3 throws further fuel on the blazing wreckage of Black's dark squares. Thereafter White can pick his way to win
Originally posted by Mad RookI guess that solves that old question. White wins by force with perfect play, and the key move is 1. c4!!.
Who am I to shatter your dreams? It's the [b]Perfect Game! Congrats! 🙂
(I went back to throwing bits around on a real board - Now all moves look good to me. 😉 )[/b]
Thank you for the praise, but honestly I wasn't fishing for it. I was only worried that my dominance of this game was blinding me toward poor play of my own. This is the sort of thing I think is very important to look for when studying a won game--it is much too easy to say, "wow I played great" and then basically forget about it. I have found in a grand majority of my wins moves and positions which should have lost me the game. Most games, it seems to me, are actually losses and can be studied that way if the point where the game is lost can be found. In this game I was having a hard time with this exercise. That's all! My hope was that someone would discover some horrible move that I got away with, or at least some improvement on the text.
I do like that Maroczy Bind though. Transpositions are very fun!