Adventures in the Botvinnik Variation

 Losing a won position in the first round of a Swiss System event is never fun.  But Akshay Indusekhar found an extremely cool tactical shot.  Such is chess.

I came up with a "better" move in the post mortem, but that move throws away the win, too.

Here's the critical position: can you do better than me?

Brock-Indusekhar

Tim Just's Winter Open, 2012

White to play and win

Also, the position after move 18 is a theoretical tabiya: some of the famous games I'd forgotten are included in the notes below.

The most exciting opening?

One can make a strong argument for the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav.  The position after Black's 10th move was first reached by Grünfeld (!) in 1936,  Botvinnik came up with the amazing idea of castling queenside in 1941, and in 2012, I have yet to meet a person who claims to understand what's going on in this crazy opening.