A Lost Opportunity

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My latest game, which I lost, held the promise of a win at one point. Figure 1 shows the situation after White blundered with his Queen move.


Figure 1: game

A few moves later and the rating bar was at -4.1. See Figure 2. It was up to me to consolidate my sizeable advantage by playing b5 but I played the ineffective 23. ... Qd7? and the evaluation bar fell to -1.6.


Figure 2: game

I still had 5 minutes and 46 seconds left on my clock but for some reason I dithered and I eventually got into time trouble. My opponent was much higher rated at 1624 and so I only lost 6 rating points but it shows I can hold my own against that level of opponent but only if I keep my nerve. It failed me here.

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