Rapport, R. – Bartel, Mat

2763 2021 · White wins (resignation, time or agreement)

French Defence, 2021: Rapport (2763) with White against Bartel (2616), who chose the classical 3...c5 setup and pushed on the kingside. Once the queens came off, the game turned into a rook-and-bishop endgame where White squeezed patiently, backed by a passed pawn. The decisive moment is technical rather than spectacular: 43...Rg6 swings the evaluation from +1.7 to +3.3 for White, turning an unpleasant defence into a lost one. Rapport kept pushing, marched his king all the way to c7, and Black resigned. Accuracy: 91% for White, 85% for Black. The takeaway: in endings like this, a single passive rook move costs as much as a middlegame tactical slip.