Best Game of 2023 Nominee

The Romanian Chess Championships of 2023 may have a contender for the game of the year. Check out the news on chess.com for a full write up of the Szabo v Stepaneucu game by GM Rafael Leitao. I just wanted to highlight a few postions that I found insightful.

The following position was after black’s 15th move. There are a few options for white here who just went a pawn down. I don’t know if I could have been bold enough to take the route Szabo did here.

While 16. Qe2 seems to be the safe play here, Szabo went for the sacrifice 16. Qxd8+ gaining a rook and bishop for his queen after 16 .. Bxd8 17 Rxd8+ along with a king side attack that he felt was worth the exchange.

After black’s 19th move to get out of check 19 … Kg6, Szabo finds himself in the following position. He finds a brilliant move here (spoiler hint here) seemingly ignoring the queen attack on his rook. But is he really?

Szabo found 20 Ng2. If black decides to take the seemingly hanging rook, look at what follows: 20 … Qxd8 21 Nf4+ Kh6 22 Nxf7+ Kh7 23 Nxd8 and white gets a pawn and the queen for black’s mistake.

The next position is after black’s 26th move, when the queen took the rook on a1. White had just previously made the bizzare 26 Nb5 move.

Only one good move for white here. Can you find it?

The only good move was 27 Nh6+. After careful inspection, we see black cannot capture the knight because of 27 … gxh6 28 Rf4#. Thus, black is forced to take the pawn on h4.

While there are several other postions that are noteworthy, the last one I’ll share is at the end of the game. It is white to move and there is a mate-in-3 and a mate-in-2. See if you can find both!

Szabo found the mate-in-2. Can you find it and the mate-in-3?

If you found either, good job! Since I read the article and followed along I was provided the mate-in-2 which was brilliant. The mate-in-3, however, was not provided so I met that challenge! I was certain the mate-in-3 involved a discovered check by moving the knight on g5. But where? Did I want a double check or did the e4 or e6 squares provide a better tactic? After careful study, I found 43 Ne4+ g5 44 Bxg5+ Kh7 45 Nf6#.

The mate-in-2 is found by 43 Rxg6+!! White is forced to capture with their own knight, and then the smother happens with 44 Nf5#. Stepaneaucu resigned after the rook take. What an awesome game!

Puzzles from the Dubuque Scholastic Open

On Saturday, December 10, 2022, Fox Lana of the Decorah Sjakklubb participated in the Dubuque Scholastic Open. Fox played five games where each player was given 30 minutes on a 5 second delay. He brought home second place!

Fox shared a few of his tournament games with me at our regular Sjakklubb meeting, and gave permission to share a few of his positions.

In this first position, Fox was playing black. White had just pushed the pawn to a5 and it is Fox’s move. He found a mate-in-5 from this position. Try and solve before reading on! (There are two paths to the mate in 5).

Fox (Black) found a mate-in-5 in this position

Technically, there are many more paths than 2 as you could interchange whites first and second responses in both paths that I’m referring to. Here is what happened in Fox’s game:

1. Qxh2+ Bxh2 2. Rxh2+ Rxh2 3. Rxh2+ Kg3 4. Nf5+ Kxg4 5. Ne5#

The other path is if white’s king decided to go to f1 on the third move: 3 … Kf1 4. Rh1+ Kg2 5 Rg1#

Owning the h-file proved to be a great tactic for Fox, and seeing the mate-in-five starting with a queen sacrifice was brilliant! The last two moves would have been challenging to calculate.

This second puzzle I thought was even more brilliant, and I’m not sure if I could solve this puzzle. Even the Stockfish engine had to take a second to find the move. Fox, playing white, took 2 minutes to find the only good move in this position. See if you can find it! Black had just pushed the pawn to c5.

Although this is not technically a mate-in-3 puzzle, this turned out to be a mate-in-3 during the tournament. Don’t feel bad if you cannot find the move, as it is really tricky.

Fox found 1. Rxf6!!

If black captures with either bishop or pawn, white has mate in 2!

Fox saw that if white decides to capture his rook with either 1 … exf6 or 1 … Bxf6, he has a mate-in-2. Although easier than the first puzzle, this may still be a challenge! Can you find it?

After either 1 …. exf6 or 1 … Bxf6, the line continues 2. Qxh7+ Bxh7 3. Nxf7# for a brilliant and unique smother mate. If black wanted to avoid the mate-in-3, their best response was 1 … Ne6 which still would have put them at a disadvantage engine-wise.

Even after black’s best response, white still has a +11 advantage (according to Stockfish on lichess)

I’d like to close with a big congrats and thank you to Fox for his achievement and for sharing a few of his games with us.

A Mate in the Middle

I ran across the following mate-in-4 puzzle for white reading 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Masetti and Messa and had a difficult time with the analysis.

As always, I encourage you to find the solution before reading on.

The discovered check move 1. c7+ forces black to take the bishop with his rook 1 … Rxf3, as there is no other moves available. When exploring this line, it was difficult to find what was next. Then, I stumbled upon 2. Qe8+. If 2 … Bxe8, then 3. c8=Q# is game over. So, instead, 2 … Rxe8. But , then we have the wonderful resource 3. Rxe8+. Again, same thing, if 3 … Bxe8, we have 4. c8=Q#. Is there anything black can do?

Yes. What if 3. Rxe8+ Kb7? While there is a winning path to checkmate with 4. c8=Q+, there isn’t a checkmate in 4 moves here. This is what made this so interesting to me.

So, instead of starting with the discovered check, let’s end with it!

1. Qe8+ Rxe8 [1 … Bxe8 2. c7+ Rxf3 3. c8=Q#] 2. Rxe8+ Bxe8 3. c7+ Rxf3 4. c8=Q#.

A Little Bit of Calculation – A Brilliant Move

This week, I want to share a few positions/puzzles with you. The first puzzle is one I’m hesitant to call simple, but much easier than I made it out to be. I had to walk away and come back in order to finally see the mate-in-3. The second one I’m very proud of, as I think of this one as a much more difficult puzzle that I worked out rather quickly!

Let’s start with the first. This is puzzle 898, called “Just a little calculation”, in the book 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Masetti & Messa.

I’ll give the second puzzle first, and then some hints and solutions below. This puzzle comes from puzzle 902 in the same book. It is titled “A brilliant move”.

White to move – Can you find the mate-in-3?

In “Just a little calculation”, I calculated too many of the wrong moves. I simply didn’t see the solution as a possible move for a long time. The solution begins with the rook taking the pawn on b6, forcing black to take the white queen with its own queen. Now that it is out of the path of the rook on bottom, that rook sweeps over to take black’s rook and deliver check and mate after the queen interposes. The line: 1. Rxb6 Qxc6 2. Rxa2+ Qa4 3. Rxa4#

By the time I reached the second puzzle, I did already have some practice. However, what made this difficult at first was the number of responses black has after the first move. It was challenging to work through how all of them didn’t stop the inevitable mate. The solution begins with 1. Qc6!!

Let’s look at the line with the obvious response first. 1 … Bxc6 2. Rd8 Qc8 3. Rxd8#

Knowing this, is there anything else black can do? Take the knight instead? No, as that is met with the same exact moves. If black tries instead to defend the back rank with Rg8 or Qg8, then there is a mate in only one more move with 2. Qxb7#. What if the queen rushes down ahead of time with 1 … Qc8?

This is met with the same second move 2. Rd8 leaving a few moves to analyze. Both 2 … bxa5 and 2 … Bxc6 would be met with 3. Rxc8#, and both 2 … Qxd8 or 2 … Rg8 would be met with 3. Qxb7#. This puzzle involved not only a brilliant move, but a brilliant study!

Queen vs Pawn Endgame – Mixed Motif Puzzle

Queen v Pawn

Many of you are capable of finishing most queen vs pawn endgames. A pretty basic tactic is to plant your queen in front of the pawn somewhere and then march your king over to take it.

However, there are a few of these type of endgames worth noting. Specifically, when the opposing pawn is on the seventh rank. Take a look at the following position.

This can be a very challenging endgame for someone that doesn’t know the trick. The black king will defend the pawn as best he can without stepping in front of it, since doing so gives white the opportunity to move his king one square closer to capturing the pawn. So, white’s goal is to make the black king step in front of his pawn.

Here is a likely sequence to get the job done.

1. Qf4+ Kg2 2. Qe3 Kf1 3. Qf3 Ke1 4. Kb5

We get to move the king closer! Now, let’s do it one more time to get the idea.

4 … Kd2 5. Qf2 Kd1 6. Qd4+ Kc1 7. Qe3 Kd1 8. Qd3+ Ke1 9. Kc4

Another step! This process continues until black sees that there is no hope and resigns or steps away from his pawn so you can capture and finish the game against the lone king.

OK. Time for a mind-blowing realization if you haven’t seen this yet. Take a look at the following position and notice what is different about the first position given above.

White to move, but black can force a draw!

All we have done is interchanged the king and pawn… and what?!? Black can force a draw?!?

Let’s play our regular series of moves and see why.

1. Qe5+ Kd2 2. Qf4+ Ke2 3. Qe4+ Kd2 4. Qf3 Ke1 5. Qe3+ Kf1 6. Kb5

Our king is on the way to the rescue! Let’s keep this up.

6 … Kg2 7. Qe2 Kg1 8. Qg4+ Kh2 9. Qf3 Kg1 10. Qg3+ Kh1!

The king steps away from the pawn to tempt white into taking it for a stalemate. Black can continue to do this and never step in front of his pawn to allow any more advancement of the white king! What an interesting endgame draw!

To conclude: if black has a protected pawn on the seventh rank in the a, c, f, or h files, black can force a draw (as long as white’s king is sufficiently far away). If black has a pawn on the seventh rank in the b, d, e, or g files, white can win.

Mixed Motifs Mate

Not sure if it was my tired mind and the end of the night last night, but I couldn’t find the best move here. Study the position and see what comes out as best.

I considered 1. Qg5+ for a long time until I saw the black response 1 … Rg6. That definitely wasn’t the best move. The next paragraph contains a hint, and the following will give the solution.

This puzzle is a mate-in-3 puzzle. If I were given that, I may have been able to find it!

The solution is 1. Rg7+. I’ll leave it to the reader to find the different ways you can mate in 2 more moves if black chooses 1 … Bxg7 or 1 … Kh8.

Max Lange Attack – An “actually quite simple” puzzle – The Philidor Position

Max Lange Attack

This attack is yet another branch off of the Italian Game. From last week, this begins with 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5. As a review, Evans Gambit from a few weeks ago is if 4 b4. Giuoco Piano from last week is in the case of 4 c3. This week, for the Max Lange Attack, we look at 4 d4.

Black usually responds in one of three ways. Seirawan explores the line 4 … exd4 5 0-0 Nf6 (why not 5 … d6?) 6 e5. This brings us to the following postion with black to move.

If black moves the knight, say to g4 here, white has an interesting opportunity to regain a pawn: 6 … Ng4 7 Bxf7+ Kxf7 8 Ng5+ Kg8 9 Qxg4 and the game is pretty even.

White seems to have a better position. With Black to move, the game is even.

Instead, if we follow his main line: 6 … d5 7 exf6 dxc4 8 Re1+ Be6 9 Ng5, this brings us to the following postion.

Black’s best responses in this position are either 9… f6 or 9…Qd5. Let’s look at the mistakes 9 … Qxf6 or 9 … 0-0. The first will lose a bishop with 9 … Qxf6 10 Nxe6 fxe6 11 Qh5+ g6 12 Qxc5 while the second loses even more after 9 … 0-0 10 fxg7 Kxg7 11 Rxe6!, where white wins a bishop that black cannot afford to take without a queen-king fork by the knight.

Castling on the 9th move for black is no good!

There are definitely some mistakes that can be made by black with the Max Lange attack that are worth studying.

It’s actually quite simple

The following puzzle is taken again from 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa. This one is puzzle 824. It is black to move and win.

If you need a hint, you’re looking for a move that will be a major threat that will soon end the game. The chess engine suggests that there is a mate in 7 for black in this position. Once you find the initial move for black, if you want a challenge, try and find how white can stretch the game out for 6 more moves.

The answer is 1 … Qh3. Since 2 Rxe2 leads to 2 … Qxf1#, white doesn’t want to take the rook with his rook. If 2 Rf2, then 2 … Rxf2 3 Rxe8+ Bf8 and nothing stop the inevitible Qxh2# in time.

How does white stretch it out? One way is 1 … Qh3 2. Qxe2 Rxe2 3 Rf2 Rxf2 4 Re8+ Bf8 5 Rxf8+ Kxf8 6 Bb4+ Ke8 7 a3 Qxh2#. White cannot do anything on the 7th move to stop Qxh2#.

The Philidor Position

Last week we looked at how to promote a pawn from the Lucena Position. This week we’ll look at the Philidor Position, one in which if you find yourself on the opposing side, you can easily force a draw. Let’s take a look at a classic position. All of this, BTW, is taken from Silman’s Complete Endgame Course.

If you put this into an engine, best moves will not always be the easiest to follow. Silman breaks the method down into a few simple steps. We first advance our rook to the row in front of the pawn to stop the enemy king from advancing in front of its pawn. This is what we want to avoid. While on this rank, you’ll move your rook back and forth until white gets bored and pushes the pawn.

At this point, advance the rook to the first rank with the idea of tormenting the enemy king with an endless supply of checks. This is how you draw the game.

I just finished a lengthy, boring game playing the level 8 Stockfish engine. The engine didn’t advance the pawn until the 50th move. I just hung out on the 6th rank moving the rook back and forth making sure it was safe from the enemy king and rook.

As Silman says, after mastering the Philidor Position, you should be able to draw any grandmaster that is playing white with ease.

Giuoco Piano – Back Rank and Pin – The Lucena Position

Openings – Giuoco Piano

We’ll explore four lines that follow the opening called Giuoco Piano. The Giuoco Piano begins with the following moves.

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5

We’ll look at four paths off of 4 c3 Nf6 today. All of these are pretty boring in my opinion, as there is little room for really big errors unless they’re blatant.

The first is “the old main line which peters out to equality” according to Modern Chess Openings by Nick de Firmian. It goes as follows.

4 c3 Nf6 5 d4 exd4 6 cxd4 Bb4+ 7 Bd2 Bxd2+ 8 Nbxd2 d5 9 exd5 Nxd5 10 Qb3 Nce7

The Möller attack would be using 7 Nc3 instead. The game would remain just as equal if black went with the queen attack 10… Na5 here also. Another line off of 4 c3 Nf6 5 d4 exd4 goes as follows.

6 e5 d5 7 Bb5 Ne4 8 cxd4 Bb6 9 Nc3 0-0 10 Be3 Nxc3 11 bxc3

A complex open position that is pretty equal

How about 5 d3 rather than 5 d4?

4 c3 Nf6 5 d3 d6 6 h3 0-0 7 0-0 a5

Battle for the center leaves both sides pretty equal

Finally, let’s look at the unusual 5 b4. This is referred to as Bird’s attack.

4 c3 Nf6 5 b4 Bb6 6 d3 d6 7 0-0 Ne7 8 Nbd2 c6

Modern Chess Openings goes into detail with 65 different lines involving the Giuoco Piano and that is not even close to exhaustive. I prefer Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan, as that only explores a few different lines of play which is good enough for the beginning to intermediate player.

Puzzle – Back Rank and Pin

My favorite puzzle of the week was puzzle 833 in 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa. The title of the post is a pretty big hint. In this puzzle, it is black to move, and there is only one good move. Can you find it?

Notice that white is two pawns up currently. However, this position with black to move gives black a 3 pawn advantage. There is another big hint!! Solution is next, so continue to try and find the best move if you don’t think you have already.

The solution is Rook to c5. Notice that after this move, if white tries to take the rook with dxc5, then black has queen to d1 checkmate! And, if white tries to take the queen with Rxd7, then black has rook to e1 checkmate! So, what is white’s best move after this?

It is to take the rook. Yes, white loses a queen, but with a few extra pawns, white could fight their way out with near perfect play and any future mistakes by black.

Endgame – The Lucena Position

The Lucena position is an endgame in which one side has a rook with a non-rook pawn on the 7th rank with its King on the promotion square while the other side has a rook only. Here is an illustration giving the idea of the Lucena Position. This was taken from Silman’s Complete Endgame Course.

We start with something like 1 Rf2+ and black answers with either 1 … Kg7 or 1 … Kg6. The idea to promote the pawn is simple, as we just need to get our king out of the way and then promote the pawn. But, the idea is much more simple than the practice, which is why it is worth the study.

According to Silman, we need to use these winning ideas:

Force the opposing king away from the action (which is what we did with the first two moves)
Prepare the rook to use what Silman calls a bridge building agent by playing Rf4.
Move the king out from behind the pawn.
When the time is right, use the rook to block the opponent’s desperate attempts to check.

When playing an engine, you may notice that another strategy may have to unfold that involves allowing an early promotion that will then allow you to steal the rook afterwards. White must be careful to not move the king too far away from the pawn. The goal is to eventually use the rook to build a bridge like the following diagram.

This leaves nothing more for black to do. The best black can go for in the original Lucena Position (when white knows what they’re doing) is to exchange the pawn (promoted or not) with the rook and leave white with a rook and king. This, as we know, is a losing position.

Evans Gambit – A Brutal Move – Fake Stalemate

This week, we’ll begin a new format on this tab of the Decorah Sjakklubb’s website. We’ll cover an opening, a puzzle, and an endgame with each post.

Evans Gambit

A while ago, I covered the Fried Liver Attack off an Italian Game. White can also play Evans Gambit off the Italian Game. We first get things going with:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4!?

The idea of Evans Gambit play is to trade the pawn (and/or pawns) for more advanced development (Winning Chess Openings; 2003, Yasser Seirawan). The best move for black is to accept the gambit.

4 … Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4

We could diverge quite a bit from here. The Stockfish engine prefers the following defensive continuation.

6 … d6 7. Qb3 Qd7.

Let’s follow a path in which black gobbles up white’s pawns instead.

6 … exd4 7. 0-0 dxc3 8. Qb3 Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 Nge7 11. Ba3 0-0 12 Rad1

At this stage, black is two pawns up but the game is even with white in a much better position.

A Brutal Move

The following puzzle comes from puzzle 820 in the book 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa. I’ve been slowly working my way through this delightful book over the last year now and will sometimes find puzzles that I love. The correct move here took me quite a while to find, but once I landed on it I knew it was the right one. It is, as the title suggests, a brutal move. Before I say more, please take some time to find it. Black to play on this puzzle.

I have to say, I toiled for a while on this one but it was worth my time finding it. I’ll provide a few hints in the next paragraph if you need them, and the solution in the paragraph after.

The first hint is that this is not a mate in 2, 3, 4 or more puzzle. The second hint is that the move you are looking for threatens a mate in the next move or few moves if white doesn’t give up pieces.

The solution is to move the queen to e2. Observe how huge of a threat this move is to white. White cannot capture the queen because black has a checkmate on the next move with rook to f1. White cannot capture the rook on f2 because after the queen captures the bishop on f2 for check and backs white’s king into the corner, mate follows when then queen captures the rook on e1.

The chess engine suggests there is mate in 12 after moving the queen to e2.

Fake Stalemate

This endgame analysis comes from Joel Benjamin in his July 2022 US Chess magazine article Rook Pawn Magic. Look at the following position for white.

With white having a rook pawn and a bishop that is not the same color as the queening square of that rook pawn, it seems for a moment that black has a great opportunity for a stalemate. All black has to do is continually threaten control of the a8 square. However, black’s biggest weakness is the b7 pawn that will have to move in a “fake stalemate”. Consider the following sequence of moves.

49 … Kh8 50. Bc3+ Kh7 51. Bg7!

Black has no other move than to advance his b-pawn. This is white’s strategy… to force this move until his rook pawn on the a-file can capture it! Play continues.

51 … b6 52. Bf8 Kh8 53. Bh6 Kh7 54. Bg7!

Again, another “fake stalemate” that makes black advance his b-pawn. If black does not resign, white repeats these moves until he can take black’s b-pawn, and then promotes it while capturing black’s a-pawn with the bishop.

Saturday Game Analysis

Setting up the clock with a 5 second delay and giving each of us 75 minutes (how the tournament in Des Moines will be timed), I sat down with Jerad for a game at Impact. Jerad was black. After black’s13th move (Be6), we found ourselves in this position. I made a careful calculation and found what I thought to be the best move. See what you would do as white in the following position.

Seeing the domination of my rook on the e-file, I found 14. Bxc6. This turns out to be a fantastic move if black does not respond accordingly, but a sub-par move to 14. Bxe6. If the bishop takes the knight here with 14. Bxc6, what is black’s best response? Do you retake with the pawn or queen? The best move is to take with the pawn, as taking with the queen is a blunder! By taking with the queen, you leave the bishop hanging on the e-file. So, after 14. Bxc6 Qxc6 15. Nxd4, white comes out a piece ahead.

Why is 14. Bxe6 better? After 14 … Qxe6, white begins an attack on black’s knight with 15. b5. In this situation, if black decides to move the knight to safety, then 16. Nxd4 is next using the relative pin on the e5 pawn. Black’s best response would be 15… Qa2 which attacks white’s rook as well as removes the relative pin on the e5 pawn.

Through several blunders (for both of us) we arrived at this position. In hind-sight, this should be finished every time against the most difficult of computer engines by white.

Embarrassingly, with plenty of time on the clock (over 10 minutes), I let the time get to me and did not calculate out the position. While at some point, I would have to sacrifice my bishop for the pawn on the a-file, doing so immediately leads to a draw as there is no way for my king to take out both black’s pawns AND keep him away from the h8 square. In hind-sight, it is easy to see that Bc7 is the correct attacking move to ensure the win.

Fried Liver Attack

For the last few weeks, I’ve looked for a game in which we could play the Fried Liver Attack as either white or black. So far, nobody has taken the black line far enough for me to initiate it as white, and when I was black and did take it that far, white didn’t use the attack. Oh well. At least I know it exists and will be a fun game when I get to play it.

The main line begins as follows:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6

To initiate the Fried Liver Attack, white moves 4. Ng5 threatening to take the f7 pawn on the next move and fork black’s queen and rook. What would black’s best response to this be?

If you found 4. … d5, good job. This block’s the bishop from its attack on f7. After white captures with 5. exd5 we find ourselves in the following position.

Not yet to the Fried Liver Attack. It depends on Black’s next move.

It is suggested by Stockfish not to recapture the pawn right away, but to play 5. … Na5 to attack the bishop. We will not explore this line, as we want to explore the Fried Liver Attack, which means that the knight must recapture the pawn. So, play continues with 5. …Nxd5 and the Fried Liver Attack may commence!

6. Nxf7

After this odd and interesting play, white sacrifices the knight in order to bring out black’s king.

Black’s only move here is to capture the knight to protect the queen and rook. But after 6. … Kxf7 white responds with 7. Qf3+. Study the following position and see how you would respond as black before reading on:

Here is where things get interesting if black has not yet seen this position.

With white having two attackers on the knight on d5, and black only having the queen as a defender, the best move for black is to add a defender while getting out of check with 7 … Ke6.

White continues to attack the knight with 8. Nc3. From here we’ll look at two lines that black could initiate, either 8 … Nce7 or 8 … Ncb4. The engine seems to favor the second option. To provide yet another defender for the knight pinned on d5, let’s say black answers with 8 … Nce7.

In this case, white’s best response is 9. d4. If black takes the bait with 9 … exd4, then white will win back the knight (and possibly a pawn) after 10. Nxd5 Nxd5 11. Qe4+. So, black should answer by providing further defenders to the d5 square with 9. … c6.

Playing it out from here would provide some interesting games!

Let’s back up and explore black’s slightly better move of 8 … Ncb4. Here, black initiates an attack on the c2 pawn while providing a defender for the knight pinned to d5.

Rather than continue the attack, white now needs to think about defending the c2 pawn. After either 9. Bb3 or 9. Qe4, black can respond with 9 … c6 and interesting games can ensue.

Puzzles from my game last week

The game we played was pretty even for 16 moves. Moving my bishop to h6 was a huge error according to the Stockfish engine. After a few text moves we were in this position with white (my opponent) to play. What was his best move here?

The only defender to my bishop on h6 is the knight. White should threaten those knights the best he can with 19. e5. In the actual game, however, play continues with 19. Qd2 which kept black in the game.

Later on, we found ourselves in this position. White had just advanced the f pawn, and the black queen came down to take. What is white’s best response here?

White elected to trade queens here leaving black a bishop up. But look at 40 … Qh7+! The king is now forced to move in line with the queen with Kf8 or Kf7 and then white can now get black’s queen for their rook with 41 … Rf5.