Find the holes in my thinking proces

Yes you can learn a lot from analyzing your losing games - but actually I often finds it quite obvious why I lose in any given game (blunders, overlooked tactics etc). But when I proudly do an analysis of a newly won game, I often find quite a lot of themes where I am unsure, whether I'd played rock solid moves - or I actually had a lot of holes in my thinking proces.

Anyone care to have a look at this example? (I tried to annotate the game with my in-game thoughts):

You are right. Dropping your knight should have cost you the game.

But before that, your opponent played c5 and you let him get away with it. Taking dxc5 would have led to a clear advantage.

You played pretty well for my understanding. One thing i would have done differently is 25. Be3  with the plan of bringing the other rook to the b file while defending from the discovered check; but hey, 25. Rb1 lead to the blunder so it was probably better.

Speaking of your blunder, you were over focused on defending that pawn, try to keep an eye open on the whole position and you can avoid this kind of mistakes.

thx for the comment both of you - and greats points!

notmtwain: dxc5 was not so obvious to me as I wanted to keep a strong center and thought he had c5 covered (2 attackers/2 defenders) but of course I overlooked that dxc5 bxc5 would give me the tactical opportunity to play Qxd5! when c5 would no longer be covered after exd5.

far01: great point about utilizing both rooks on my two open files - actually my Rb2 was played partially to get out of the possible discovered attack but I overlooked the possibility of both obtaining this AND utilizing both rooks by Be4. BTW - In the game I felt confident that I was giving black a hard time of utilizing his own rooks.

11. dxc5 bxc5 (11... Qxd1+ gives White an extra pawn) and maybe 12 Qa4+ Nbd7 13 Rd1 Qxa2?! 14 Ne5 Rd8 15 0-0

15... cxd4 and if 16. exd4 only then 16... e5.

21... Nxd5

nobo: Guess 11.dxc5 bxc5 also gives white an extra pawn as pointed out above? Great point about blacks threats that I overlooked however. Thx.

ddmeltzer: Thx - great if my analysis is useful. And it is for sure helpful for myself to do my own analysis and getting critique before running the game through an engine. I can recommend it. I use Hiarc Chess Explorer to add comments after the moves and simpply copy/paste the game when a post here. Guess every chess program have the feature and maybe even game analysis her om chess.com (haven't checked).

Garrus: Yeah sure the game was decided by the blunders. It was my general thinking process and comments to my analysis I was looking for help on. Not on deciding why the game went as it did.

Thanks for adding in - yeah somehow I overlooked this in the game. I should be punished hard for that, since I just came home from vacation where I brought a copy of Nimzo's "My System" for reading material. This kind of move is basically page-1 stuff

Do you think that it was my largest strategically error in the game (beside the knight-blunder), since your point that one out specifically?

Not necessarily because c3 hangs too. 12. Qxd5 Nxd5 13. Bxc5 Nxc3. If 12. Qxd5 Nxd5 13. c4 then maybe 13... Nb4 threatening 14... Nc2+. And if white defends with 13. Rc1?! then black defends with 13... Nd7.

4BD2 would have kept you from having doubled pawns and an isolated pawn

You are right.

Stockfish analysis:

Just wanted to add that after going through the analyze from Stockfish only few and subtle themes presented itself other than the ones already mentioned by myself and you guys together (except for the possibility of still performing a kind of fork on the rooks/queen by 20.Nd6 - do you see it?). Nice job and thanks for all the help!