Know the classics (but also when to update them)

The diagrammed position turned out to be the crucial moment of my game against Alana Chibnall on Tuesday night (not that I realised it then). After losing a pawn in the opening I decided my best chance of saving the game was to play a rook ending a pawn down. After reaching a position where I had a more active king and rook, I realised the position had some similarities with the famous Capablanca v Tartakower game from New York, 1924. In that game (given below) Capablanca gave away a couple of pawns (with check) to get his king into a more aggressive position.
Following this script I adopted the same strategy, creating a path on the kingside, and heading my king to g6. However it turns out there was a problem with following this script too closely. In the given position I played 36.Kg6 and after 36. ... fxg 37.Rg3 Ke8 38.Rxg5 Kf8 my opponent had just enough time to defend everything and I went down after 39.f6 Instead I needed to play 36.Rb3! first, as this had the effect of forcing my opponent to either give up the b pawn, or put one of her pieces on a bad square. The most instructive line began with 36 ... Kc7 when 37.Kg6 is now two tempii up on the game continuation, and I have enough time to win everything!


Capablanca,Jose Raul - Tartakower,Saviely [A85]
New York New York (6), 23.03.1924