The last post mentioned that Cahit Furkan Sallan recorded a perfect 5/5 in last month’s DCU Majors. In the last round, he faced Darshan Choudhury, who had also reached that point with a perfect score.
The game had an interesting, but quite puzzling, finish.
41… ?
The diagrammed position is crushing for Black, and now 41… Rb2 is the simplest way to proceed. Instead the game continued 41… Qg1+ 42. Kf3 Qf1+ 43. Kg4, and now Black erred irrevocably with 43… f5+??.
After 44. exf5, he erred once again with 44… gxf5+?, instead of 44… Qxf5+ with equality.
45. ?
Amazingly, after 45. Kh5!! White would now be winning. The threat is 46. Kg6 and 47. Rxe7, and Black has no effective defence. After 45… Qh3 46. Qf3 Kf7 47. Bf4 Ra3 48. Bg5, White has a winning attack.
Instead White missed the opportunity with 45. Kg5?. The difference is that after 45… Qh3!, 46. Qf3? (46. Qxf5=) would now lose to 46… Rxd2! 47. Rxd2 Be3+! 48. Qxe3 Qg4+ 49. Kh6 Qg7+ 50. Kh5 Kh7 and mates.
The game continuation as shown on live boards was 45… Bf6+?, which loses, and then 46. Kg6 Qh3 47. Bg5 Rxe2 48. Qxe2 Bxg5 49. Qe6+, followed by the two illegal moves 49… Bf6 50. Qe2, followed by 0-1.
This is the puzzling part. The last two moves are clearly spurious ‘live board’ moves, but Black is irredeemably lost after 45… Bf6+, and it is not evident what the actual game was. Did White lose on time?