DHLC qualifier - round 1 - Apr 26

Here is a game I played here in chess.com.   This was the league qualifier for Dan Heisman Learning Center (DHLC), an ideal place for those who want to play slow chess tournaments online.  This was the first round and the game turned out be a really unique and educative one for me.  

I had scheduled this game around a really hectic schedule.  To play this game, I had to take some time off the road and find a coffee shop relying on my phone's LTE connection to get online.  My plan was to drag my opponent into a sharp opening like King's gambit, and finish the game as quickly as possible regardless of the result.  I also saw it as an opportunity to improve my attacking skills and tactical ability.  

But the game turned out to be very exciting, and tiring for me.  It dragged on longer than I thought and both me and my opponent were exhausted by the time we were done.  It was a see-saw battle, and I made a blunder towards the end that proved to be decisive.  The weird thing about the game is that I thought I had a forced checkmate at least twice during the game.  My opponent found great defensive moves on all those occasions and stuck around playing a good defense, inducing an error from me that he immediately capitalized on.  As for me, I was very proud to play an attacking game, and really got to appreciate the concept of weakened squares.  I was down in material, but made a good use of my opponent's weakened dark squares.  I also used king-side pawn storm in my attack, and felt good about it.  I was a little disappoited to lose at the end, but it was a great game overall.