A Combination to End the Drought

Lately, I suffered a long series of losses to much lower rated opponents. Those losses came replete with gross blunders such as leaving my Queen en prise , allowing a checkmate in one, and imagining moves that are actually illegal. I attribute this tailspin to burn out. After studying the performance charts, a virtual rollercoaster of losing and winning streaks take form. It seems that after a period of inactivity, I would go into a streak of victories. At the point of burn out, a streak of losses follow. I trust this is not uncommon among tournament players. We need to rest up to play better.

The combination below broke the fall, and pumped in some much needed confidence. I foresaw the win to the end which surprised me, given that my confidence ran dreadfully low.

My opponent played 25... Rd3 to shew my Queen away. If only my Queen was behind the Rooks, the e pawn would fall. The capturing the pawn on a7 looked tempting, but Black has 26... Rh3 exploiting the pin and garnering some play. Fortunately, I saw 26. Qd3! 

After 26... ed3  27.Re8+ one can see that the Black King has no way out of the two-rook attack, and will ultimate line up with the Queen on g6.

27...Kf7  28.R(1)e7+ Kf6  29. Re6+ skewering the Black King and Queen 

29... Kf7 Rg6 and White is a Rook up. It would be very easy to capture the Black passed pawn on d3 afterwards.

Online Win for a Real World Draw

Once in a while, the limitations of playing Chess online surfaces. 

Playing the Black pieces, I lost this 5-minute blitz game when my time ran out. In the last seconds of play, there was no way to claim a draw by clicking on a Claim Draw button nor was there, obviously, an arbiter to be hailed to the table to adjudicate the matter. A few moves earlier, realizing that my remaining time was insufficient to effect a win, I decided to exchange off my rook to arrive at a position where my opponent had only a minor piece. In this final position, White possessed no mating material. Yet, it was scored as a win for White. No chessplayer out there can win with the White pieces in this position.