Lost to floor expert, need advice on the game.

You were probably at a disadvantage because of the environment.  Make the guy use a chair next time, play on a table and see how he does against you.

You were fine until you allowed 30. Rd7

I agree and you made things worse with 30..g5. You would have had nothing but a spite check after 31 Ng4.

Your development was ok, I would have tried for c5 earlier, and put my knight on c6, which is more testing for white I believe, but nothing you did was wrong.

Until 10...c6 which makes no sense to me :)  He has more space and is developed, so advantage to white.  c6 was a wasted tempo.  He let you have a bishop with your Nf4 move, which was probably a mistake on his part, allowing you to free up some space by a piece exchange.

Ok so move 17...c5 (good) maybe white is a tiny bit better because his rooks are centralized, but this is about equal.

18...a6 isn't good in principal.  weakens your queenside and it's not moving a rook.  I see you may have been worried about Nb5, but after Rad8, the queen can afford to go to b8 because she no long disconnects the rooks.  Even if you don't like that idea in this position I mention it because it comes up in many positions so it's useful to see (move the rook to the center, so another piece can go to the backrank and not disconnect your rooks).

19...cxd4 feels wrong too, I think it's a bit impacient.  Your opponents pieces stand better so you don't want to open the position.  Again it's better to move a rook.

20...Qc6 is a non-move.  He's not going to give you a mate in 1, so IMO it's like a pass.  If the position is = then passing is fine, but again I think you need to move a rook and finish development so to speak.

21...Nh7  ok so you're going for these tactics.  Best case scenario there are some trades (again there's no mate unless this guy is rated under 1000).  White is better after trades.  He has the queenside majority in an endgame and he is more developed.  Your plan should have been IMO a queenside minority attack or simply moving a rook and then deciding what you want to do.

24.Bxf6  hehe, he lets your knight out of the corner.  Why not Nf3?  Oh well, I'm sure he is banking on the superior activity of his heavy pieces to hold his small edge.

26...Ne4.  No need to lash out.  Think of where your play is.  I still think the queenside is your aim.

28.Qf5  again your making 1 move threats without getting a feel for the position.  You still haven't moved your queenside rook, although I admit I didn't immediately notice this move was bad until I saw white's next few moves, and backtracking we see after 29.Ne5 black is completely uncoordinated.  White has infiltration at c7, d7, and the d file is his.

29.f6 again you're lashing out, ok this is happening a lot so let me explain specifically what I mean.  Imagine your move in isolation.  What I mean is imagine both sides are not allowed to make a capture for the next 1 or 2 moves, does f6 look good in general?  No, it weakens your king and lines up targets on the 6th rank (e6 and b6).  So ask, is this move good by itself?  Will I like it as much in 5 moves as I do now?  10, 20, 30 moves?  You have to be able to always like it for it to be good.  (Or make sure it involves very forcing moves, so it's inherent weaknesses will never matter... 1 forcing move is not enough, I mean a lasting attack).

I'm sure white sensed this and looked for a way to exploit it.  Even without Rd7 his game is better due to the f6 move, but he happened to find an immediate way to punish it.

The rest after this is really difficult for black, as you said, so I'll also stop there.

It may have been very close to equal for a long time, but I think black was flirting with danger on many moves.

I don't want to sound harsh by harping on moves that didn't technically make black's position losing, it's just this is exactly the kind of advice I'd appreciate someone giving me.  At the very least I'd get to see it from their perspective.  When he was sitting across from you I think it was on these moves he was probably saying to himself "hmm, how can I exploit that minor inaccuracy" (maybe not, but I at least it's what I'd be asking myself in his position ;)

I concur with most in that you were doing fine until you cracked with 29...f6 30 Rd7 (which, admittedly, is a tricky move, as it's natural, in a game, to assume that moving the knight away is an automatic reaction in such positions). Nonetheless, around move 30ish, I wonder if I'd really be able to win that position against a strong engine like houdini -- I could see it coming up with some annoying way to make threats against my king and try to get perpetual check, stuff like that. That's always how I look at my chances: I ask myself, however bad the position is, "If I played houdini from the other side, would it find a way to make winning this a pain?" and then that gives me motivation to continue to play hard, and find the best move, and maybe it'll frustrate my opponent.

Also, in reply to wafflemaster, while I agree that there are ways for him to fine tune his thinking, the most important thing is that he doesn't blunder (well I'm not sure if his move was quite a blunder even, but a large mistake in any case), because, if he didn't blunder, that would have been quite sufficient for him to hold. So that's the priority. Nonetheless, I still think you have given some very useful practical tips.

And to his credit, he held his own very well tactically, only cracking after a long time. A weaker player would have cracked much more quickly.

Well, maybe I talk too much lol.  Those were my thoughts anyway, maybe it's not as useful as pointing out the blunders.

I always really liked it when I got to sit down with an expert or master and pick their brain though.  What do you think about this?  And it's a move I think is perfectly fine... and they say a similar move is better for some practical reason or they ask about my thought process and I'm thinking about it all wrong and I really appreciate it.

I may even give it to houdini, and houdini liked my move better than the guy's suggestion (this happened once I was really happy lol), but at least  now I know there are practical dangers.

I'm not saying I do as good a job :p  But that's where I'm coming from anyway.

Well, if you are curious, I did sit with an IM a month ago, going over our game, and, he basically did just say "this move is fine," "this move is fine," etc, because, like in the game posted here, the pawn structure was basically symmetrical and all the pieces were developed, etc. And then eventually he said "but here you gave me this opportunity... and white's lost here." We then played through a sequence of tactical moves where black was putting too much pressure on me.

But it was all based on going wrong with the piece play (mistakes like 28...Qf5). He really didn't bother about any subtle details -- in that position you just had to make, see, and defend threats more efficiently than the opponent, as the position was otherwise symmetrical. Indeed, I probably could have played like 3 alternatives at a lot of points and he still would have just said "this move is fine," and quickly move on to the next one, until he thought something important was happening. Equal, symmetrical positions are often like that, where you have like 5 moves that amount to the same thing and so it doesn't really matter which one you choose.

And of course it was surprising -- he was not nearly as meticulous as you might imagine, and I think, due to the nature of the game I played with him, rightly so! I'm sure in a closed position he would go crazy about such things.

Indeed, the game was basically just equal for 30 moves, and then I get a disharmonious position with a move like 28...Qf5, maybe make another mistake or two, and he puts too much tactical pressure on me and wins.

I would like to note, however, that he was, indeed, slightly wrong about some of the criticisms he made about my moves (thus making me right!), so I know that feeling

Thanks guys, so the only thing I got out of 28 is I should of moved my queenside rook instead? Just wondering what are better moves for 28 and 29 for black if anyone see's a good move? I know I should of moved my queen's rook sooner but I don't know which square on 28 is good for that rook. When I moved my Queen to Qf5, I was giving myself an option to either make a Queen trade offer on the next move or move the Queen to f6 so I could play Rd8. I'm still unsure how to handle the Knight on e5.

Heh, if I went over a game with an IM and all he did was point out what I could have found at home on my computer I don't think I'd feel too satisfied :p  I get what you're saying though.

Queens love the center, and yours was beautifully placed, a 2-3 move plan to exchange her is probably not good.  Wanting to get your rook in the d-file was good.

It's good to keep in mind if you go into an endgame his Q-side majority is dangerous (it's farther away from the kings).  I think you want to either play in the center or on the queenside and in general avoid going into an endgame.  Q vs Q would be fine though.

No, no, he did evaluate the position plenty -- I probably didn't describe it in a way you could understand exactly what was going on. I'm basically saying that in those kinds of positions, the little details on moves like those on 18-21 aren't that important -- it's just about seeing tactics and coordinating your pieces well in the center. If you look for all those little tiny details, you might miss a more concrete tactic. The IM was able to pick out the most critical moments, and not pay too much attention to the parts of the game that didn't matter as much, as learning about what to do in those critical moments will make the biggest difference in your play -- I'm saying making the right moves on moves 28-29 was critical, because that's really what the whole game collapsed on.

Again, it's always very hard to describe exactly what I mean -- it's hard for me to say exactly why I think black should be fine despite his passive position -- I guess it's just something you develop an instinct for. The simplest way I can put this: If you can just avoid mistakes like those on moves 28-29, you will be extremely hard to beat, even for masters. I think the biggest part of being good at chess is avoiding the big mistakes, because they erase all of the work you do at exploiting small ones -- in other words, such mistakes can erase 40-50 moves of hard work. And if that's possible, you have to work hard to get those mistakes down to an extremely low rate, so low that you won't make them even after playing numerous games.

So, I know this defies my appreciation for chess beauty, but I really do think he played really well (for his rating), simply based on the fact that he went so long without blundering! . A lot of times I do the opposite: play pleasing positional chess, then make a beginner's blunder!

Sorry that my writing is probably a mess today; I'm sort of in a hurry .