What do you make of the white pawn on a6?
Its the distraction I need to pull off the thing I wanted to do. That extra 'wasted move'. It isn't possible to defend it from the pawn on B7 and pushing it into B7 just kills it too. Its not a very helpful piece.
Having been tempted to have a second look at this ...
Rook on A1 to A4.
This forces black to move his knight on c4 to a5. It can't go anywhere else. If black defend with pawn to d5 you just take it with the pawn on e4. If he replied with the pawn from e6, your queen then zooms up the board and has his Bishop with no reply and I feel you could close the game out pretty quick from there.
Next e5 to e6. He must take the pawn or move his knight. Moving the knight cedes all control of the centre of the board cos I already cleaned out the other knight.
Now move knight on f3 to f5 threatening the d7 fork on his queen and f8 rook.
All of that was forced ... and now black is a mess.
I can't see much further than that ... I start to forget where all the pieces are, but I feel like this is a better solution just tightening the screw on black.