Queen's Gambit Coincidence

Black to play and win after 21.Ref1?

Steve Stoyko showed me one of his better games from this past weekend's U.S. Amateur Team East while we were waiting for the last round to begin. We became so engrossed in discussing the game, which began 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 c6 7.Bd3 O-O 8.Nge2?! (an inaccuracy), that we ended up a little late for the round and had to hustle to our seats. As I sat down at Board 4 next to our Board 3, NM Scott Massey (who had Black), I could hardly repress my laughter: Scott's opponent had just played 8.Nge2?! as Steve's had the night before.... Clearly this called for a little article on "A Common Error in the Queen's Gambit, Exchange Variation, with 8.Nge2?!" and I was very pleased when Scott finished his game so nicely (see diagram above), which made it really worth showing....

You can read more about this line in Lecture #4 of Steve's 1.d4 d5 Black Repertoire series from this past summer (which would have benefitted both his and Scott's opponents).