22 Jun 21
Having played through the games that appeared in the Queen's Gambit miniseries, I found one sequence particularly enchanting. It occurred in Luchenko-Harmon in episode 7. Here is the complete game
score, and just below that is a diagram showing the position where the sequence begins.
Here's the position after 38. f3.
38...h5
This opens the rank for the f4-rook to hit h4. Yet it invites White's pawn to reach the g6-square, where it would seem to impede Black's mobility on the kingside.
39. gxh5 Kh8
The king would have had to move shortly anyway.
40. hxg6 Rxh4
Now the h-file is open...
41. Rh1
...but how does Black's c7-rook join the attack?
41...Rch7!!
That's how. On 42. gxh7, 42...Qg7+ would be decisive.
What a marvelously imaginative sequence! It brought Black victory within a few moves.
(The position after 38. f3 was reached also in A. Petrosian--Akopian from Yerevan, 1988, but Black played 38...Rcf7. The game was drawn on move 46.)