Going over my games and annotating them really helps me to study them. Please add your comments as well. Thanks!

What exactly were you thinking with 23.BxF7  I don't see any compensation for losing the bishop... I am very hung over though so it might be that.

My impression is that you play scared.

At 6. g3 you say "Not sure why I did this." My guess is that you were trying to block the diagonal of the dark squared bishop because you were scared of being attacked on h2. But as you note, this creates more weakness than it prevents. This is what happens when we respond to threats that aren't there, we create real problems that come back to haunt us.

 

8. Qa4 you say you want to keep the knight out of action and mix it up in the center. But if you use a queen to keep the knight out of action, aren't you  keeping more power out of action than your opponent?

 

at 15. Rd4 you say you were trying to cover the bishop. The bishop was not attacked and had a lot of squares to go to if it needed to evade a threat. It doesn't need to be covered by a rook.

 

At move 18 you say you don't see an advantage to keeping the rook, that you are down a piece, and want to simplify. All three of these statements fall between inaccurate and just wrong. If you initiate the trade of rooks then your opponent imediately gets a rook on the open d-file. So why not make your opponent initate the trade. You are down a pawn, people generally say they are down a piece if they are behind by a knight or bishop. When you're down material, you don't want to simplify, this just makes it easier to convert the advantage, instead you want to complicate.

 

At 20. Kg2 you say you move the king because you're afraid of an eventual check by the bishop on c5. Again, you're responding to non-existent threats. Why can't you just move the king to g2 when the check comes. Then at least you've forced your opponent to make that move. And is your king really safer on g2? The diagonal where the bishop and queen are?

At move 20 I prefer 20. Bxf6 gxf6 21. Qxf6 attacking the f7 square, the d8 rook, and opening the g-file to your opponent's king. If your opponent plays 21. ... Rf8 guarding f7 then you can draw immediately by 22. Qg5+ Kh8 23. Qf6+ Kg8 where you have a perpetual check.

 

22. a3 doesn't really do anything for you. You need to be looking for tactical shots. Notice that the rook on d7 is only guarded by the bishop on c6. This is a potential weakness for black. You can play 22. Bd5! This pins the bishop to the queen so that it no longer defends the rook. Black can't play 22. ... Bxd5 because of Qxd7 and black can't unpin the bishop by moving the queen because then you just take the bishop.