The Chess Mind

He writes the following:

It seems to me Ivanchuk really had a winning position: 44 gxh5 gxh5 45 Bxc6 bxc6 46 a5! planning to break through with b3-b4-b5. After 46... d5 47 Bxg5 Nxg5 48 f4+ Kf5 49 fxg5 Kxg5 50 cxd5 cxd5 51 b4 c6 52 c3 the pawn endgame is (a little surprisingly) won for white [DM: In a couple of ChessVibes comments, he continues the variation as follows: 52...h4+ 53.Kf3 Kf5 54.h3 Ke5 55.Ke3 and refutes 55...Kf5 {in his 5/17, 11:53 comment}, 55...Ke6 and 55...Kd6 {in his 5/15, 16:22 comment}.] and 46... Nd4 47 b4 Nxc2 runs into 48 b5! winning. See also my comments (MTel R2) on chessvibes.com. Can anyone prove me wrong?

Always happy to oblige. The 46.a5 idea is a very good one, but I believe Black has no less than two ways to save the draw. White has a couple of other tries too, and one might be even better. That one's probably a draw too, but I'm less certain of the verdict in that case.

Have a look, here.