Chess Puzzle of the Week (92): Solution

I left you with this position last week. This was from my game against Maks from our lichess tournament of 4 August.

I missed the opportunity to sacrifice my queen and force mate in 10 moves:

25… Qxg5+ 26. fxg5 Rg4+ 27. Kf3 Rh3+ 28. Qg3 Rhxg3+ 29. Kf2 Rg2+ 30. Kf3 R4g3+ 31. Kf4 Rh3 32. e6 f6 33. gxf6+ Kxf6 34. e7 g5#

Instead, the game continued:

25…d4 26. cxd4 Rxd4 27. Be3 and now the same queen sacrifice would have been mate in 6 moves:

27… Qxg5+ 28. fxg5 Rg4+ 29. Kf3 Rh3+ 30. Qg3 Rhxg3+ 31. Kf2 Rg2+ 32. Kf3 Bb7#

As it happened, no harm was done: the game concluded quickly:

27… Rd3 28. Rh1 (e6 was the best try) 28… Qd4 29. Rae1 Rxh1 and Maks resigned.

Should I have seen the sacrifices? It’s, I think, forgivable to miss this sort of thing in a quick game, but, in a slowplay game I should (but probably wouldn’t) have taken the opportunity. You really only have to see that you’re regaining the queen in order to play the combination.