Rapport, R. – Ponomariov, R.

2686 2017 · Draw

Rapport (2686) faced Ponomariov (2687) in 2017 in an Italian Game where 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 quickly produced an unbalanced structure: Black pushed g5, h6, f5 and g4 while White retreated his knights only to reroute them toward d5. The first swing is 23.b4, a mistake that drops the evaluation from -0.2 to -1.7 and hands Black the initiative. Ponomariov then lets it slip with 27...Qxc3+, from +3.7 to +0.1 — a winning edge gone in a single move. The rest, a string of exchanges on d7 and d8 followed by a bishop race, offers nothing: 85% accuracy for White, 82% for Black, and a shared point. The takeaway: won positions are lost one move at a time.