It might appear that White has succeeded in avoiding the major threats that had troubled him; for now if queens are traded with 3. …BxQ; 4. NxQ, Black has nothing too bad left to unleash. But this mistakenly assumes that Black will take White’s queen with his bishop. He can do better by playing 3. …RxQ; for now if White replies 4. NxQ, Black has a rook fork: Rxe4+, taking White’s knight on the next move and winning a piece.

That last bit is the most important thing to see here. It is the reason why this whole counteroffensive of White’s, starting with 2. RxR+, doesn’t work. But for the sake of completeness it should be said that in this last diagram Black actually can do still better than RxQ. He can play his queen to d7. The resulting position looks innocuous, but in fact White is in serious trouble. (This is the hairy part.) The only safe square for White’s queen is b4. But 4. Qb4 clears the way for Black to play 4. …Rc1+. White’s options suddenly are limited. If he moves his king to d2, he gets mated immediately with Bg7-h6(!). White has no other flight squares for his king, so he has to interpose with 5. Nd1. Now that White has moved his knight, it is safe for Black to move his queen back to g4. This leaves the bishop on b5 loose, so White can take it with his queen (6. QxB); but then Black has QxN+, forcing 7. Kf2, Qe1+ and various further troubles;—e.g., 8. Kf3, Rc3+; 9. Kg2 (not Kg4, to which Black replies Rxg3+ and mates soon), Qxe4+ (check after check); 10. Kh3, QxR and then eventually QxN as well.

You are excused from tracing out all these latter complications, but the rest of the position is worth close study. It has a bit of everything.