First game posted for comments

Hello all, I am fairly new to this crazy game. I learned to play when I was pretty young, but never took it seriously untill a couple months ago. Then I revisited the Chessmaster Academy, and started watching videos, doing tactics and got a few books. I have definitely improved, but there are so many moves where I just don't see any rhyme or reason for any particular move.

Anyway, this is the first game where I made notes as to what I was thinking during play. I realize that I easily won against a weaker opponent, but I would still enjoy comments on my thinking process or strategic thoughts.

Also, since it's the first time I've intentionally recorded my thoughts at all, I am anxious to learn how to anotate and post on the forums.

overall good thinking and good game. Congrats !  

on move 3,  pawn to d4 is often played for the reasons you give on move 6.

you played 3 h3 as you were concerned about ....B - g4.  You should not be.   That is considered a bad move, as you would have  4 d4 X e5, and he has to move the B a 2nd time exchanging it for your Horse ( with edge to White ).   Otherwise on 4......d6X e5  you exchange Queens followed by Horse takes free pawn on e5

7 d5 is about your only bad move ( my opinion ).   You block your B on c4 which had prevented Black from castling

On move 8 you can first try pawn to a3 driving the Horse back from where it came, and making your following B check more powerful as the Horse no longer controls c6 ( if he were to block your B with a pawn )

8.....Ke7 is no good.   instead  8.....c6 gives Black more options as it attacks your B.

11.....Black is best off not surrendering the Horse with N-a6

your comments to your 13th move are good.   however why give Black the choice on how to recapture your Horse ?   Better than your 13th move is Horse takes on g5 winning a pawn.  If he recaptures, then you win his Q as in the game

if 19....B-e7 then 20 N-d5  with mate next move

You might've won the queen the same way but a little faster with 10. Nxg5 fxg5 11. Bxg5+ (as mentioned by HorsesGalore). Another tactical idea early on was 6. Bxg8 Rxg8, which would've prevented Black from castling kingside and left his "h" pawn undefended.

I agree with HorsesGalore, especially for an early d4, and good tactics on your part overall. In general there are an awful lot of rook pawn moves by both sides here. Even as a preventative measure (such as h3), rook pawn moves are usually wasted moves in my experience since the main action should be going on in the center. Before moving a rook pawn, ask yourself if you really need to. Many games have been lost because of lost time from moving rook pawns.

Very well done I thought.

Some interesting things to think about might be the early h3. General theory tends to be against it. But it usually comes into play relatively early anyway as in the standard Ruy around the 9th move, so while it does cost developing time, or tempo, I'm not sure how much a negative it ultimately is. 

The major tactical weakness to remember (or use on an opponent) however is the N on f3 protected by g2 which also covers the exposed h3. If the opponent Q gets an open shot on the file at the N or the opponents Rook after castling has access and your N on f3 isn't protected by some other piece there is the play where the B picks off h3. If you take gxh3, then the opponent takes the unprotected N on f3 formerly protected by g2. The resulting loss of a pawn and shattered Kside usually isn't good. Might be something to keep in mind when playing h3 or seeing an opponent play the equivalent. 

How do you post a game

Thanks to everyone for the replies. I will do my best to set this up on my board and check out everyones comments. It's especially refreshing to see that my thoughts were mostly valid. I think its great that this was such a short game. This makes each comments quite easy to see in relation to the whole game.

I am particularly interested in exploring the h3 move. It seemed to me that if Bg4 then I would have to play h3 anyway, and then if Bxf3 then I would have to recapture with gxf3. Then I have torn apart my kingside castling pawns. I see the queen also easily defends this square, but I thought it best not to get it out there so early.

When I think about it, whenever I have moved my bishop to attack a knight like that, I have never captured. Anyway, since this seems to be such a common situation I should probably study up on it.

Thanks!!

Click the little chess board icon up there by the font buttons and follow the instructions. It was pretty easy. It did get a little confusing when entering the comments and at one point I thought I accidentally deleted the whole thing after I was done. But it was still there.

rael357,

If you want a playable board post, look up PGN (Portable Game Notation) online, then click on the chessboard icon on the page when replying to a message. If that fails, just paste text in algebraic notation, then fix it up in a few weeks after you work out the details.

Culinarytracker,

No, the difference is that you should play h3 when you have a *reason* to play h3, meaning after the enemy bishop is already there. Maybe your opponent never intended to put his bishop there; maybe he intended to put it at f5 or d7 all along, in which case you just end up losing a move. Then if he does put his bishop at g4 you can poke it, then either ignore it, move Be2, Nbd2, Qd3, or do something else. Just look up the book moves for the Philidor Defense to know what is typical for White to do about that pin.