Bergen Chess Mates. Deep Freeze 2014. Ridgewood, New Jersey.

The Bergen Chess Mates of Ridgewood, New Jersey commenced their annual Deep Freeze Tournament two weeks ago. They hold this tournament every year in the dead of Winter. Approximately thirty players with varying strength participate in the tournament. The time control is G/30, three rounds, one round per Monday night. In the first round game, my opponent and I arrived at this position.

At this point, I had an idea that I could net his queen for my rook given the very exposed position of the White king. All I had to do was to get my queen out of the way. I almost went for 31...Qh5 threatening 32...Rg6, but fortunately I saw that this would fail against 32. Qb8+ Kh7 33. Rh1 skewering my king and queen and game over. I had to play 31...Qc8. The game continued with 32. Qh4 Rh6 putting  White in deep trouble particularly regarding that weak square h3.

White accepted his fate with 33. Qg3 and play continued 33...Rg6  34. Qg6 fg 35. d5 Qg4+ and Black went on with a winning game.

After the game, there was some kibitzing. Someone pointed out that I should have played, in the position above, 45...g2 with White having no way to stop the pawn from promoting such as 46. Re4 g1 (Q)+. This was true, but my actual move was not bad at all which was 45...Qe4 Ne4  46. g2 and this pawn could not be stopped from promoting as well.

Sometimes, you get the opportunity to play a move that accomplishes several things at the same time, kinda like a linchpin move that holds everything together. I infiltrated my opponent's position quite well, but no winning combination has yet been found to force a win. Black played 20...Qa5-Qa6 (diagram) attacking the rook on b7. This is the sort of move that may look reasonable at first glance, but it actually loses big time. White's 21. Nc5! defends the rook, and attacks the black queen at the same time. But this move brings the house down since it opens up a line of attack on the f7 square. That's the real problem. Black played 21... Qc6 completely missing the point. There truly wasn't any game-saving move to play. After 22. Qf7+, the game was over.