Welcome to my short series of personal annotated games for the current 3/7 league.
18. Rh1d1
!! At first Qa8 jumps out to me, but it seems counterintuitive as I want to keep the pressure on black, but after Qd7, 19 Qa5+ the position does not improve. Rd1! Continues to put pressure on the the king threatening e5 and prying open the center.
18... e5 19. a4
!! This pushes the Queen to d7 and allows the white Queen to move to b6 and to start putting real pressure on black. Just as good may have been Rc5, which is protected due to the rook pin on the d file.
At this point my plan was to simply walk my a pawn up for promotion, and I figur almost any move can be ignored until the promotion. This is basically because black needed to develop his dark square bishop to free up space and any wrong move would cost black the game. I figured he would play Be7 or possibly h5, Bh6 or even Ke7.
At this point the game seems pretty much lost, after promotion black's best option is to sac the queen for the rook and pawn.
29. a8=Q Qd8xc7 30. Qb7xc7 Rg8xa8
At this point black resigned; After Rh1 black's position just becomes harder and harder to defend. Note: black could have played on. The game was not totally lost. After 31. Rh1 Be5 32. Rxh5 Rc8 33. Qa7 Rc4 seems interesting. However after 34. Rh7 black cannot play Rb5 because of the very strong Rxf7+! I hope you enjoy the first game of the series!