White, 872 vs. Sarah Ramson, 1322

This was my ninth and final game in the 2023 US Open. My performance was in line with the bulk of my other games in this tournament: Lichess reports 83% accuracy and four blunders.

At the end of the game, 28. …Rff2 was when I accepted that I had lost; at that point I could easily visualize the very sequence of rook moves that did in fact play out, leading to checkmate, and I couldn’t see a way to prevent it. Sadly, I did consider 29. Re2, but because of the bishop I believed it would be futile:

29. Re2 Bxe2
30. Nxe2 Rdxe2

…would have left me in essentially the same situation. What I failed to recognize was that if my opponent did capture the rook with her bishop, that would have left the f2 rook undefended and my king could have taken it. Alternatively, had she captured it with one of her own rooks, my knight could have taken that. In either case, I would have escaped the immediate danger and had a chance to fight on.