Would you have seen Rxc7?

#29
I said in a winning positions trade pieces, not trade pawns.
Each piece trade brings victory closer.
People lose in winning positions because they get overconfident, lower their guard and miss tactics.

@tpr what @jesgluckner meant is that while you should indeed trade pieces you should wait for the right moment to do so and not just blindly do it.

As you may know there is also the rule to not trade pieces during an attack. So those two rules can contradict each other.

#32
The good way to trade pieces is to put pieces on strong squares e.g. in the center so that the opponent trades these off.

No offense in the long run, but the thread is not a competition about the bleeding obvious @tpr.

@tpr you mean so you have passed central pawns? in the opening for example you should not put them there immediately as it just ruins your pawn structure and you lose tempi. An example of what you mean would be helpful. I think avoiding piece exchanges during attacks can be very good, even when being one or two pawns up.

#35
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1066901
Here is an example of how to convert a win by simplification.
Black blunders a piece, but plays on.
White converts by exchanges.
For example he plays Bg5xf6 giving up his bishop's pair just to eliminate a piece.
Each piece exchange brings the victory closer.

www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032520
Here is another example.
White optimistically sacrifices a knight for 2 pawns and an exposed king. That is not enough. Black defends and trades and wins. Very strong 19...Re7 trading rooks.

After seeing Rxc7 its very clear but I would need 20 min to find it.

@tpr In those examples it was pretty clear to exchange. The opponent was ahead nearly a full piece! This wasn't the case in my situation. I was BEHIND one pawn. I had less material. My advantage was a positional one. I would have gotten mate or a huge piece advantage by Rxc7 not necessarily by the Knight capture. To play it means to some degree to play hope chess, that it'll be sufficient for a win. In that particular case I checked again, it was +4.5 so that is sufficient, at first it only showed 2.3 or something, which doesn't always win.

I might have seen it if it was a tactic puzzle and I spent five minutes on it, but there's no way I would see that in a game! Rxc7 is a really nice move.