One of the best games I've played to date

I just wanted to share a fascinating recent game of mine that includes one of the most complex middle games I've played so far:

http://en.lichess.org/sxmQ3cf8/white#45

One might claim a game to be one of their best because they were able to outplay and defeat their opponent convincingly, however in my opinion this game is great for almost the complete opposite reason- the game stays relatively equal throughout, despite being extremely complex (by my standards that is). I'm very proud of my move "23. c6", as after some comprehensive post match analysis stockfish only finds this move at depth 24! The game ends with my opponent resigning in a relatively equal position, with white playing with a +1 advantage. I'm still not entirely sure why he resigned, but he must have believed I would have been able to convert this advantage into a win, although I'm not so sure myself.

Hope you enjoy the game.

M

Cool!

Sick move! ^^

gxf4 seems slightly better though.
But after 23.gxf5 Bxc5 24.Qxe4 Qxe4 25.Nxe4 Bb6 (0.81) the position seems very difficult to play for white. Those bishops are monsters.

Thanks Neverness and Sollerman.

Sollerman- You are very correct and this is the reason why I avoided this line like the plague. What makes move 23. even more fascinating for white is that both blacks rook and bishop are en prise, yet to take either leads to difficult lines for white to play (especially in a 10 min game).

You've already mentioned the line where blacks rook is taken, but during the game I also noticed that taking the bishop (23.cxd6) leads to a forced draw by perpetual after .. 23.cxd6 e3 24.Rxb7 Rxb7 25.gxf4 exd2 26.dxc7 Rxc7 27.Qxc7 d1=Q 28.Rxd1 Qxd1+ 29.Kd2 Qg4+ 30.Kf1 Qd1+ (0.00).

The game was very fascinating for me too. Thank you for describing it here so nice. Especially 23. c6 is an outstanding move and I didn't see it coming.

Unfortunately I have only little experience in endgames, so finally I underrated my position (and didn't see the best move 27. rook c4). But I promise to improve - precisely because of the missing endgame experience :)