You don't know what you're doing II

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I've touched before on the joys of playing highly theoretical lines without knowing the theory. If I were a class or two stronger, I doubt that I could continue to get away with it - but at my level I find that, mostly, opponents haven't memorized everything any more than I have. So we can have fun getting into crazy positions and trying to work out what to do about it.

In this week's game, a Polugaevsky Najdorf, Opponent blinked first.



I'd been out of book for at least a couple of moves - pretty shameful, considering that we're right in the middle of the main line - but had made good moves anyway. Here White is apparently supposed to play 12. Qg4, after which things get distinctly complicated. While I didn't know that, I was pretty sure that 12. Nf3 couldn't be right...

Still, I'm nowhere near good enough to be winning (or losing) games due to a few opening inaccuracies, and the game's critical errors came a bit later:



Here I played 22. ... f6, anticipating the game line: 23. Rxe6+ Kf7 24. Rb6 Bxg2, with the point that after 25. Rg1, black has 25. ... Bc5. But this is a mistake, as white should play 24. Re2 fxg5 25. Rf1+ Kg6 26. Re6+ Kh5 27. Re8, winning back his piece. Therefore it seems black should settle for 22. ... Bxg2, when he has plenty of pawns and is still better.

I was slightly surprised by Opponent's resignation. Certainly white is lost, but I'd expected to have to play a few more moves to prove the point.

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