Vellmar - Round 5

After a very long life-or-death struggle including pawn and even piece sacrifices by my 2200-opponent, where I managed to hit the best move (according to the computer) for some 10 moves in a row (which was absolutely vital), I reached the following position:

Yes - it is undoubted that Black is better. But how much? Is it a (very) clear win?  I saw some variations with queens leaving the board and Black losing the a-pawn... Actually, I personally gave it less than one pawn (i.e. about 0.8 or so) for Black and with some 12 minutes left for 12 moves I - once more - chickened out and accepted a draw.

Actually, the computer rates Black´s position at almost +3.0 (even now knowing the score, it seems a bit too much to me) - and what is even more astonishing for me personally, it doens´t really matter at all whether Black keeps the a-pawn or not! Important, however, is the fact that Black has to avoid trading queens (and even the computer needs some more 30 moves to make the victory clear); wheras trading rooks is cleary favouring Black...


Ok - I still need to work on my position evaluation ability (as well as on my self-confidence against stronger players)!