In the first game, white looks much better because of black's open king. Black's "tempo winning" moves were all weakening!

Instead of 11.Bg3, wasn't 11.Nxe4 better?

11. Nxe4 gxB. Trading a knight for a bishop isn't always preferable. Also, The Knight has to retreat after black captures the bishop. On top of that, the Black queen controls d8-h4, giving her great access to the enemy king and the g-file becomes another open file for black's rooks. Besides, there many openings in which one side opens up their king side even after castling, like the Keres attack in the Scheveningen Sicilian, King's Gambit, and the London System.

I used to think that line was:  "Time is in effluence..." (I always thought that was cooler).

Oh thanks... well, it'd be a lie to say that's the only inaccuracy in the post.

Did you just give 6 Bc4 a question mark? It's one of the main moves. Black wins one tempo and white gets to keep the bishop on the strong diagonal. Black's a6 move is not going to scare white to not develop aggressively.  Black has a huge weakness on d5 in the second position when the white bishop which lost tempo is controlling! Don't do anything just to win a tempo. Black does better to develop his game first before ...b5. In the first game, black isn't justified in pushing his kingside pawns. That knight on e4 can be chased by f3 after white's knight moves followed by e4 when it is black who was punished.

While the idea to try and help out your fellow players is indeed an honorable one, it's usually not a good idea at yours (or mine) level. Our understanding of the game is to limited, and all the advices we can give out, is usually wrong.

Yeah, wrong or inaccurate. This stuff is probably best left to the masters who post articles here.

good point. Next time I'm going to try less and post games already including GM annotations.

ps. No more of this forum topic 'til I get it right!