as a sort of training i decided to do an analysis of one of my games. and here it is:

i have not added the name of my opponent because i was not sure it would be respectfull to do so. (i've send him my analysis though)

anyways it probably contains a lot of useless stuff, but i'd love some feedback :).

what bugs me about this game is that it took me very long to find the mate, and even then it was on the very last move. does anyone know a good way of practicing this?

I agree that d3 would have been better, if he wanted Bxf2+ you should have let him have it; I generally find that rook and pawn for knight and bishop is [when played solidly] a worthwhile swap; although a rook is 'worth' more, two pieces are still more than one.

I don't know if I would have played 16. Rf8+, although looking at the game, it is one of the stronger moves, Qf3 and Qh5 both look threatening but I don't think are fast enough to  justify giving up the d knight.

The mate was nice though, I'm not sure you could have made it any faster. I considered 16. Qf3 but this would easily be countered by Bc5.

Good analysis

Just a thought but 15. Ne6+ forks the King and Rook and the d pawn is pinned to the King. Clearly 10...Nxf2 was horrible--these are my initial thoughts from playing over the game quickly--mating faster isn't always important. In winning a won game you want to eliminate all your opponents counter play

@ aansel, thank you i didnt see that the knight could fork. :)

what bugs me about this game is that it took me very long to find the mate, and even then it was on the very last move. does anyone know a good way of practicing this?

You did good, I love it when my last move checkmates my opponent. The only move I ever made after checkmate is when I lost and I threw the board across the room, Sorry Bobby Fisher...

haha ok maybe i said that a bit wrong ;)

i mean that i did not see the last combination (leading to checkmate) coming. and that i only saw the possiblility to mate in the very last move (and not a couple of moves ahead). 

and that bugs me because now it relies on luck if it want to mate someone, and i want to know if there is some way of training it....

The best of of learning how to mate is understanding different patterns, Using Chess.com's tactical trainer or Chess mentor is method. There are also lots of books on mate pattern with problems. Some basic ones I like are the two 1001 by Reinfeld and also Wilson and Albertson have several as well that I use with my daughter--bottom line is you need to practice so you recognize mating patterns by looking at all the pieces and the escape squares

The letters are files, and the numbers are ranks. So, you could move to the 7th rank, or the g file. (You seemed unsure in your analysis.)

thanks, i always get those 2 confused ;)

styxtwo: if you're in the Netherlands, you should get the workbooks that the chess federation's youth program uses.

www.schaakbond.nl , Schaakmateriaal, SBS online winkel, bestelformulier, and then Werkboek stap 1, stap 2 etc. The first steps are very simple, step 6 is 2000+. Lots of tactics with a bit of endgames and strategy in later books, and cheap.

Possibly also available abroad via www.stappenmethode.nl .

thank you very much, i do live in the netherlands :)

but unfortunately i don't have the money to spend on chessbooks. but perhaps ill buy them when i have more to spare :)