RJCC Alumnus Luke McShane v Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, from Round 6 of last month’s British Championship.

If you’re a reasonably sharp tactician (which you certainly ought to be) you’ll see two things almost immediately. One thing you’ll notice is that the otherwise tempting 36. Nd5 gives Black an immediate perpetual check.

You’ll also observe that White can continue 36. Qxe7+ Kxe7 37. Nf5+ Ke6 38. Nxd4 exd4, reaching a pawn ending which you have to assess before deciding whether or not to choose this line.

Is Black’s passed pawn on d4 a winning advantage, or is it just going to fall off the board? Perhaps the position’s balanced, with neither side being able to make progress.

If you play it out for yourself you’ll soon discover that after 39. Kf1 Ke5 40. Ke2 White will eventually win the d-pawn when his extra pawn will be decisive.

This is a great example of why you have to excel at every aspect of chess. It’s no good finding tactics if you can’t assess the resulting position accurately.

What happened in the game? Did Luke play this?

Surprisingly, no, he didn’t. Perhaps he wasn’t sure about the endgame and thought he could outplay his opponent with the pieces still on the board, even though the computer considers the position more or less level after the game continuation 37. b3.

The good news was that Luke eventually managed to bring home the full point – a mere 83 moves later.