Petroff - Under-Developed Knight leads to White win

My colleague, Simon recently played against a Petroff in our local chess league. This game demonstrates the use of tactics against an underdeveloped knight and reaffirms the truth in the adage that as a chess player you should always aim to "get the pieces out as early as possible!".  The threat of back rank mate became very difficult to deal with ... In Simon's words:

"The theme of the game was the fact that Black's b8 knight could not get developed and so he did not have sufficient force to defend against the tactics based on the threat of mate on the back rank. The lack of development theme continued right through to the ending, when my 24 Rc8 and 25 Bc6 enabled me to win even more material and finish a rook up".

Simon eventually won on time ...

PGN Viewer courtesy of http://chesstempo.com/