Jerome Gambit: Entering the Maze (Part 3)

[continued from the previous post]

perrypawnpusher - DaniyarManat

"Piano Piano" tournament, Chess.com, 2020

At this point in the game, I did a lot of thinking...

Okay, maybe White was better, but what was my plan? Transforming my Queenside pawn majority into a passed pawn would take forever. Using my 2 pieces vs a Rook to win material was an idea, but opening up the Kingside files right away was risky - not only to my King, but to my Rook and possibly my Bishop, via x-ray attacks. It looked like victory was still a long way off.

24...Rhf8 25.Bc5 

Developing the Bishop with a gain of tempo. I wasn't sure what else was going to happen.

25...Rf7 26.Ng5 

Hitting the Rook, but with no real plan other than that. 

26...Rf6 

First, I thought of 27.Nxh7, but I wasn't happy with opening the file for Black's other Rook after 27...Rh6 28.Ng5 Rh8. Then I thought of repeating the position for a draw, if Black played 27...Rf7, i.e. 28.Ng5 Rf6 29.Nh7, etc. That kind of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere.

Then I decided to annoy the Rook by putting my Bishop on the long diagonal, 27.Bd4. Of course, if he then played 27...Rff8, I could repeat with 28.Bc5, etc. But he wouldn't do that, would he? He had 27...Rc6, instead, so I had to investigate 28.c3, 28.Bc3 and 28.Rf2 - the last move had the benefit of moving my Rook to where it was protected by my King.

But what about ignoring my c-pawn and capturing his g-pawn with my Bishop, 27.Bd4 Rc6 28.Bxg7 ? That left me open for the terrible 28...Rg8, lining his Rook up on a file with my Bishop, Knight and King. Plus, his other Rook could feast on my pawns.

That led me, in turn, to consider some help from my advanced pawn, and then things began to click: If 27.Bd4 Rc6 28.Bxg7 Rxc2 29.f6 Rxb2 30.f7 - and it was clear that Black's pawn-hunting would allow me to promote my pawn, forcing him to give up his Rook. 29.f6 looked pretty good against 28...Rg8, as well.

27.Bd4 Rc6 28.Bxg7 Rxc2 

As predicted, but this pawn hunting expedition should fail.

 

29.f6 Black resigned

So, it looked like DaniyarManat agreed with me. But - should he have? Imagine that play continued consistently with 29...Rxb2 30.f7 Rxa2 31.f8/Q Rxf8 32.Rxf8 - would that have been messy enough to continue play, despite White's material advantage? Would throwing in 31.Nxh7 first have helped White out? I think in both cases, play could have continued if the game had a fast time control, but we were playing with 3 days per move, so my opponent probably figured that I would figure things out.

In any event, hats off to my opponent for his creative play!