Resistance or Defence? (Part 3/3)

This almost unreal position came in one of my games in Marienbad.
I don´t have anything more to show on this subject from Prague tournament, so now I shifted to Marienbad.
One of the games that I considered to analyse on this blog was against Sergei Matsenko from Russia, because it contains   some elements of good defence, but it is to much theoretical and I decided to keep some secrets in that theoretically very important game.
This game is against Czech Republic IM Peter Pisk, who plays mostly solidly, without taking to much risks.


The position on the diagram is the final position of the game, and it finished with a draw.
Interesting is that your computer engines can show substantial advantage for White here, up to +1.5 which means that position is almost winning for White.
That is of course only because computers doesn´t understand concept of fortress.
Position is easy draw.

In the opening I played The French Defence, and quite inexperienced in this opening I underestimated his next move.

17. b4!

It gives him small but long lasting advantage.

17...0-0!

A very good reaction.
There is one important point behind this move.
If he goes directly to try to take advantage of my weakened king side I have something tactical in mind.

18. Qh5, Bf7!
19. Qxh6, Nxd4

...and there is a check on e2 which will save my knight in the case of queen exchange on b6 (which is actually the best now).

Later, we reached this position:

By some cunning tactics I managed to exchange on c5 in the moment when he was forced to take with b-pawn.
I stabilised the position but he still got some pressure.
In this position I have to take an important decision.
To play h5 by myself or to let him check me on h5.

28...h5!

I correctly estimated that he will not be able to win this pawn.
Maybe I can survive even if he transfer his knight to f6, but than it will be extremely hard to defend d5,b7 and h6 weaknesses.
By playing h5 I got possibility to play h5-h4 if he does not put blockade on h4 square.
What is my plan of defending h5 pawn?
Simply I will put my king on g6 defending f5 and h5 and at the same time opening seventh rank, so my rook from h7 would protect b7 and h5.

This was the last dangerous moment, when I could go wrong.
He will put additional pressure on h5 by transferring his queen on h1.
In order to answer that plan I need to protect h5 one more time.

36...Rh6!
37. Qb1, R8h7
38. Qh1, Qh8

...and we reached the position from the very first diagram.
We repeated the position two times and my opponent wisely offered me a draw, asking me if I like the final position.
Of course I did.
Seems simple?
Yes, but that´s the way which is not easy to implement.
As Jacob Aagaard said, Chess is simple, but not easy.

After this game, there were two games in which I could present my defencive skills, against Kargin and Fris-Nielsen.
Against Kargin I simply forgot about simple tactical trick, and because it has to do with opening theory I will not publish it.
The second game is something which I already published on this blog, but I didn´t published the part of the game in which I presented my defencive skills.

However, as in  life, it is very hard to understand the behaviour of some people and the best thing is just to move on and don´t analyze it too much.
A comparison with this game is that I can locate my mistakes, but can not understand reasons why I made them.
The best thing is to move on from that game and the answers would come to me in one of the future experiences, when the infinite puzzle of human psychology decides to make a clear picture for my eyes.

The game can be seen in chess viewer.