4NCL Round 3

I'm sitting out my 4NCL team this week so just have the congress to report on. This week I was paired up against a strong player, over 1900 OTB (ECF rating) though his online rating doesn't quite reflect this. I try to ignore the online ratings in the case that someone has a proper OTB history - one big advantage of the 4NCL ecosystem is that you know the true identity of your opponent, which reduces cheating worries and helps to make it feel more "real". I had white which I've been pretty solid with recently so was hoping to at least have a good fight regardless of the result. I'm just over 1800 OTB at the moment and have only ever once beaten a 1900+ player but that was earlier this month, in the Yorkshire league. I've also won a couple of serious online friendlies recently (albeit with a bit of luck), so I seem to be on bit of a roll generally.

Anyway, I started off with my usual d4 and we settled into a Slav Exchange, in which his Bc8 was locked in and remained rather passive. We both seemed happy to head towards an endgame in which white held a small but clear edge. Black failed to find the key move at the critical moment and I prevailed in 67 moves, my longest game in a long while.

This was the key position where I'd just played the pawn from e3 to e4, the response d4 from black would have drawn but my opponent played dxe4+ which loses - can you see why? And backing up a move, what should I have played rather than the pawn push as shown?

(Incidentally if anyone knows how to make the image appear a reasonable size, I'd be grateful for hints. The gif itself is only 720x720 pixels)

Fans of swashbuckling middlegames may want to look elsewhere for their thrills, but connoisseurs of endgame grinds may enjoy the game. I certainly had fun playing it.

Meanwhile, my team won their 4NCL league match 3-1 so obviously didn't miss me.

I'll be back with two games next round.