......when you decline a draw offer in this position as black, and find a way to lose. My oppoent offered a draw. Even though I had a under two minutes to his 3:30 I still felt a rook advantage was enough. I had stopped keeping score, but was able to reconstruct to some degree how I tossed the rook back. The moves went as follows: 41. c5 bc, 42. bc Rd8, 43. c6 Rc8, 44. Bf3 Nxc6?? (Very foolish to be pawn grabbing at thsi point. I should be trying to simplify), 45. Qc3 Qd7?? (Totally overlooking the loose rook on f6.) 46. Qxf6 Na5. At this point I probably should have offered a draw back, but the time factor was clearly to my opponent's advantage. I think my pride is such that I don't want to beg for the draw after dismissing it outright a few moves earlier. I have no idea how we got to the final position where he takes my knight, and if I recapure, I lose my queen to a bishop pin on the king. So suddenly the position where I'm up a rook had degenerated into I'm down a piece, have 26 seconds on my clock, and my opponent still has 2:22 on his clock.
That had me talking to myself for the rest of the evening. Though one of my friends, and a member of the usual suspects make an interesting point. He said bravo for going for the gusto. If you had taken the draw up a rook you'd hate yourself even more. He's probably right. That's the chicken shit way out to grab a few rating points from an 1800. I'd rather play it out and take my chances.
6 comments:
I played a tournament game last year where I blundered two pawns but decided to dig in and at least give him a fight. During the course of the game he offered me a draw three times; the first time I was still down a pawn, the second time we were equal in material and the third time I had the initiative.
I declined all of them. We played the full four hours and the game had to be adjourned. The next day I was travelling from Sweden to New Zealand and strangely enough my opponent didn't offer a draw this time. So I had to resign the game. :(
I still think it feels better to lose a game but remaining a fighter OTB.
So bravo Polly! Keep up that fighting spirit and refuse the dead boring short draws!
I think my pride is such that I don't want to beg for the draw after dismissing it outright a few moves earlier.Yep, been there.
He said bravo for going for the gusto. If you had taken the draw up a rook you'd hate yourself even more. He's probably right. That's the chicken shit way out to grab a few rating points from an 1800. I'd rather play it out and take my chances.
Indeed, Bravo!
Draw offers can be tricky. One I think I am glad I accepted is here against Larry Englebretson but we will now never know what would have happened if we had played on.
Accepting a draw when a rook ahead gets you rid of a bad knight but not of a bad night.
SP: I can relate to the having to resign because of travel issues. Had that happen to me a number of years ago. Not quite as dramatic as your situation. I just didn't want to be on the mid night train back to NYC.
GW: It's not like I never take draws. In the past before time delay I was notorious for making insufficient losing chance claims to avoid flagging in "won" positions.
Tempo: The only thing the draw would have accomplished was give me the same opponent I ended out playing in round 4 or playing one of the "usual suspects" that I tend to play almost every week.
I think you are being too hard on yourself for going 'pawn hunting'. It was an annoying pawn and its natural to take it in time pressure when you are playing by instinct. The real problem was overlooking the loose knight. Frustrating, but thats time pressure. And declining the draw was the absolute right decision IMHO.
Even though I lost, I'm not mad about declining the draw offer. It's far more challenging and interesting to play those types of positions out to the end. If I had accepted the draw offer there would have been the constant "What ifs." This way I got some time pressure practice in a game that wasn't so critical. Maybe down the road I'll have a similar situation with money on the line, and I'll pull out the win.
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