Originally posted by tansje
Forgive me for intruding in the discussion :-)

I have just finished my game with Atri, it was a tough decision, taking the draw at a rating of 1334 or waiting for his rating to go up, as he certainly is a better player than that. However, waiting was tricky as well, any moment could be 'mass skull moment' (shiver) and his rating could have gone down to 500 ...[text shortened]... a plan comes together.

Hmm, maybe I need to get myself a hobby...


Game 4398774

Yep, that was a lucky escape - but if you want to see a real endgame blunder (and one that was appropriately punished), check out Game 6263767. I resigned, as the proximity of the enemy king seemed to rule out drawing chances. If i have my theory right, king and pawn can draw against king and rook if the pawn is a centre or bishop pawn (as it was here), the defending king is near the pawn (again, the case here), and the attacking king is in a position where it is irrelevant, say at h8 in this situation (alas, not the case here).

Incidentally, i defeated my opponent Vandalay in our other game, and i was impressed by the way he kept up his fast playing rate right to the bitter end, even when it was clear he was losing. He just took the rating hit and moved on, as i did in the game discussed above (though it did hurt to lost those points as i had been expecting to win).