I am interested to hear whether the engines think the position has improved for black since the fall of white's b pawn.

played through one of the lines of the game on my engine. it immediately had white up nearly 3.0 despite losing the outside pawn. i played through a computerish line that went along the lines of (i closed it and dont feel like opening it so doing it from memory so i maybe missed some intermediary moves) 36. Rc7 Na5 37. Be6 Rb4 38. g4 and black's best response was not to grab the f pawn because eventually both the g and h pawns would be lost due to combined pressure on the king and the useless knight on the rim. and failing to grab the f pawn probably leads to a pawn promotion somewhere 20ish moves down the line

i didnt look through the other lines cause i found this one most interesting, but it seems like white can just keep making solid pressuring moves and eventually black will be placed in some sort of zugzwang and have to make weakening pawn moves

How was the pawn lost after b3? Nxb3 Bxb3 Rxb3 Rd8+ is splat, and after Nxc4 bxc4 it's not close to hanging.

I looked at this position for about half an hour and really have no idea what to do. White is obviously a pawn up, but I'm not sure what to do with that yet. The "brilliant" idea behind this move is it attacks the c6 knight and will pretty much force it to move somewhere.

I honestly don't know what else to play so I thought I'd attack this piece and play a little cat and mouse and see if I can force black into making some mistake. Not saying I hope he overlooks this obvious threat, but maybe after a couple moves of this some other tactical themes will present themselves, or I'll have a clearer idea of what to do. I really am just not sure here yet.

I really don't know what my plan should be, either. White already has the pawn advantage so I have to push that home somehow, but how to do that? I can't create any sort of mating attack really, unless black's rook moves off the back rank, so what else to do? Shoot, I don't know. I'll see how ganstaman responds and go from there, but I'm not sure what I should be doing in this position.

You really should be able to find some ideas here. h7 is weak if you can clear the path (f5 gf Bxf5 or h5 gh). The K is in a net if you can play RxB. g4 f5 makes a passer. Or the K can try to come up the board. I don't see on a really quick glance how to immediately accomplish one of those goals (well, g4 f5 is easy, but just chunking it out there this second is probably stupid), but opponents are more likely to screw up if you're at least positioning for potential threats.

Something I need to be careful of is an eventual Rxb2 ...Rxb2 Bd4+ which could be mate or could pick up my rook on b2 therefore winning a piece overall. Just something to keep in mind as I move my knight to safety.

I only have a few choices here. 36...Nd8 is no good as I won't be able to get my knight off that back rank. I don't like 36...Na5 37. Be6 as I don't know what to do but 37...Re8 38. Bf7 Rf8 39. g4 planning f4-f5 and my king is still stuck but he's got a passed pawn and the bishop pair to make it annoying.

I'm thinking of 36...Nd4 planning maybe Nd4-f5-g7-h5 attacking f4 if nothing else goes on. But d4 should be a safe-ish spot from which it has a few options. If 37. Rd7 I can repeat with 37...Nc6.

Just g4 seems most straightforward now. It's an unusual position. Usually with the pawns on one side of the board, the Knight is better than a bishop, but here the Knight has no stable squares.

That white bishop is the hero of the board

Ok, another half hour or so spent on this move and no brilliant epiphanies haha. Nothing jumped out at me as needing to be played, so I started going through each piece seeing if anything interesting could be done.

The Bc4 is very well posted. It helps keeps black king pinned up and isn't vulnerable to attack. It also covers some squares from black's knight, which is a good bonus. I don't see the need to move it.

The Rc7 is also well posted. It's a rook on the seventh, what more do you want? Moving off the seventh, except for a concrete threat, seems crazy and I can't find any of those. Any other squares on the seventh don't look particularly appealing or like they do anything. If Rd7, then the knight retreats to c6 and nothing has been accomplished.

The Bf2 isn't doing anything fantastic, but what else can it do? Moving to h4 doesn't accomplish anything after Nf5, and any other moves don't make any sense.

The king? I would like to bring the king into play, but how right now? The bishop and pawn stop an immediate advance, and coming around the h-file seems to waste lots of tempi.

I'm actually thinking about playing g4 here, sort of by process of elimination. White's play here has to come from the pawns, because there's literally nothing else to do. They have to be pushed or else we'll both end up just shuffling pieces around, white can't really create any other threats. I don't know exactly how he'll respond to g4, but I feel like I almost have to play. What else can I do? And after that it opens an avenue for the king to get more active as well. Black has no threats against the white king as his pieces aren't particularly well coordinated, so white shouldn't be in any danger here.

Before I make the move, what is black aiming for? Honestly, I don't know. He can't really try to do anything on his own because of the pawn minus and no other imbalances, so he has to just try to make the defense as stout as possible. I'll have to watch out for any tactical tricks ganstaman sets up, but for now I think I'm playing g4 and seeing how he responds.

I'm wondering if he's preparing g4-g5 to lock me in more, or more likely f4-f5 to get a passed pawn, which given my king's position would be dangerous. I can hold the f-pawn back by leaving my knight on d4. However, I'm not sure what else I can move at the moment. My king is stuck, my pawns seem like they'd be a liability elsewhere, my bishop needs to guard the knight and I like that it's guarded by the rook, and my rook is guarding my bishop.

I guess I could try 37...Rf8. If 38. Be3 Nc2 39. Bd2 Bd4+ 40. Kh2 Ne3 and if I have the position right, I either get the f-pawn or get rid of the white bishop pair (I would prefer to go with opposite-colored bishops to make the draw more likely, but you can't have it all).

I also considered 37...Nf3+ 38. Kg2 Nd2 but I don't see this going anywhere.

The f4 pawn is attacked and I have to do something about that. I looked for a while to try to find a tactical solution to defend it, but couldn't come up with anything. The bishop on b2 feels awkward since the retreat squares are prevented by the knight being on d4, but I can't find any way to take advantage of that either.

Covering the f4 pawn by Rf7 seems completely awful because the rook is doing such a fantastic job on the seventh rank, I wouldn't want to trade it. So after looking for a while, I'm settling on Bg3 and seeing how black responds.

Quick note about the prior move, I had been thinking that I could be in a bit of trouble. If he played 38. g5, then 38...Rxf4? 39. Rc8+ Kg7 40. Rg8#. This is a theme I'll have to watch out for.

I wonder if I should do something about that now. 38...g5 39. f5 threatening Be5 mating seems bad for me, not to mention letting that f-pawn run loose. 38...h5 39. gxh5 gxh5 40. f5 runs into a similar problem. In fact, he can play f4-f5 after nearly any move I play on move 38. The only way I can see to make this not a problem is if I move my knight, thereby guarding against Be5+ with my own DSB.

Well, with that discovered, my next move seems easier. I keep looking at ways to re-position my knight (which feels like my most mobile piece at the moment) and I keep thinking of 38...Nf3+ 39. Kg2 Nd2 40. Bd5 and then maybe 40...Rd8? At the worse, I guess I could go back with 39...Nd4. It's not like I have many other options that I can see at the moment.

I think White is just tightening the noose at this point...hard to see how Black can really create problems, although ganstaman's line (spurious attacks on the bishop) is probably maximally annoying.

Is the position without rooks a win as well?

Stockfish has white at 2.98 at depth 21.

i removed the rooks from the position and stockfish has white at 3.15 at depth 22. the rooks are actually irrelevant to the valuation

The position without the rooks is the kind in which engines could wrongly evaluate draws as won - it's good to look at the lines it gives and see if progress is actually made. At least I'd rate Black's chances higher without the rooks.

I have to move the king and I really only thought about two squares, g2 or f2. Ultimately I decided on g2 because after Kf2 I didn't like Ne5 when the knight is getting active on some central squares. I suppose we'll go for a line like 39. Kg2 Nd2 (what else? Nd4 does nothing but waste a tempo) and then I have to move the Bc4. Not sure where yet, I'll think about it when it gets here.

Well, let's see: 39...Nd2 40. Bd5 (to stay on the a2-g8 diagonal to annoy my king, and to control my knight) Rd8 41. Rc5 Bd4 42. Rb5 Re8 threatening 43...Re2+ 44. Kh1 Nf3 for ...Be1 for ...Rh2#. Not that I think I'll pull off a mate here, but at least it's some threat I can coordinate my pieces around. Not sure what else to really do anyway.

I feel like I have gotten lazy over the last few moves. I haven't really given any in-depth explanations and probably haven't put the necessary effort into the position. So with that said, it's probably time to undertake another evaluation of the position.

Still the same imbalances as last time in that white still has the two bishops and extra pawn. But with the last couple of moves, ganstaman has played a couple of semi-obnoxious moves (how dare he not just let me win? haha), which is good when you're the defending side.

After seeing the way the last few moves have gone, my pieces won't be able to occupy their perfect posts forever (rook on 7th rank, bishop on c4, etc). They were great there, but piece placement alone won't win the game. To actually force this one through, I'll need to push f5 at some point. As it stands, my bishop is under attack now. I certainly have to save it, because without a black counterpart, it is extremely strong. Plus, the knight has no real support points so it will always be looking for a home and to let it trade itself for a bishop wouldn't be wise. So where to move the bishop?

My initial thought is Bf7, but after that Ne4 looks annoying. My other bishop is forced to move to either e1 or possibly h4, but I don't like either alternative. e1 looks passive and after Bh4, black can play Bf6 to try to do away with the bishop pair. Not thrilled about either option.

The other move that jumps out at me is Bd5. The most attractive thing about this square is it bottles up the black knight. The thing that worries me is if he plays Rd8. I don't want to move the bishop again, but I also don't want to protect it with the rook and get the rook off the seventh rank. However, I think the bishop being on d5 and killing the knight's activity is more important than the rook on the seventh. Right now the rook looks great, but it's not doing anything on the seventh. I think moving the rook back to protect the bishop makes sense and then I can start moving on with my f5 ideas.

If I don't move the rook off the seventh and push f5 at some point, I don't know what to do. Black is able to hop around with the knight and make irritating threats, and white isn't accomplishing anything right now. I'm going to try to contain the knight and see how ganstaman responds.

No sense in deviating, I don't think.

Continuing with my plan outlined in the last note. If black attacks the rook with the bishop, I'll just play Rb5 and see what happens.

Yeah, just like my last comment.

Really interesting counterattack. Seems most of the ways out of it involve swapping off pieces which may reduce Whites winning chances. Not sure if Ra5 would be best intending meeting Re8 with Ra8

Rc2 seems fine since Rxd5 is a tarp. Have to get the black pieces off of those squares somehow to get K up the board, etc

Am I missing something after 42....Rxd5; 43 Rxd2 Rd8

Surely if we end up with one minor piece or just rooks then the ending peters out into a draw?

Bh4 with Rxd4 Bf6+, and if Rd6 f5 with the same threat.