Pawn fork to decide the game

 


This game was played in my first round of SUKUM 2017 held in UPSI. I’m playing white in this game. An interesting position arises after the black’s 9th move (see diagram).

 

Position after 9. … Ne4

 


At this point, I chose to play
10. f3.
Black’s position would have been alright should he played 10. … NxNd2. However, my opponent chose to keep the knight on the board and returning the knight to where it came from by playing
10. … Nf6


This loses a tempo for black, allowing me to push my c-pawn.
11. c4
Computer analysis shows 11. g4 to be stronger, though. But at this point, black’s game is still fine and the game should be rather even. However, the biggest blunder came in the black’s next move
11. … Nh5

Position after 11. … Nh5


Can you find the series of moves to win a piece here? After some moves, we arrive at the next position after


15. … Qg6

Position after 15. … Qg6.

 


I continued with
16. Kf2 Bc2
Now, a little bit of calculations is needed to make sure that white comes out with a piece up after the whole series of exchanges.
I shall leave this short exercise to the readers and just give the resulting position below.

Position after 20. Kxe2