Oh...my...god...

I can't believe I blew this game.  I was in a winning position but didn't exactly know where/how/when to attack with the full force of my army and I wound up getting sidetracked in my mind and playing the worst ending I think I ever have to a chess game.

On consecutive moves I hung a knight and then my queen.  I haven't hung my queen in forever.  

1) How should I have attacked black's position?

2) How on earth could I just mentally space out like that and forget about the knight and queen on consecutive moves? It's like I became temporarily mentally retarded...

The most frustrating loss I've had since I started taking the game seriously here last week.

Thanks for your response to this.  I feel a little better now as I bounced back after this with a win.

I definitely get too caught up in prioritizing the castling of my king early instead of continuing aggressive tempo when I have an advantage in the opening.

Yeah I was wondering why he had so much resistance when I was ahead in development.  I hesitated and gave him the initiative for a minute there when I should have aggressively attacked his kingside.  

Thanks again 

Clicked randomly in your game. The move I clicked was 25. Rd2.  And I facepalmed.

How about Rd7 instead? It appears that you can do whatever you wish in black's position after that. A rook on 7th rank is called to be in 7th heaven for a reason :)

Thanks for your input, as well.  No question, 25. Rd7 would have been the nail in the coffin for him.  I could have done, as you said, just about whatever I wanted to his position after that.  

This game is going up on my wall of shame.  Was my first game for the day but that's absolutely no excuse.  How can someone who cares about their performance play that poorly? Time to work even harder and smarter.

A little bit of input here too.

7. e5 is better.

8. Bd2 is a waste of time as you found out. 8. Be3 directly protecting the d-pawn is better. (And also note that there's no 8...Ng4 to irritate the bishop here unlike in other positions.)

I think 11. e5 wins you a piece or exchange, since the knights on f6 and c6 both hang. 11. e5 bxc4 12. exf6 and Qxc6/fxg7 will take a piece; 11. e5 Nd7 12. Bd5 pins the c6-knight for an exchange.

14. Qxc6! wins a piece. In fact 13. e5! was a good move that won a piece but for this oversight.

The needlessly elaborate 17. Bc4+ Kh8 (17...Nxc4? 18. Qxc4+ Kh8 19. Rxd8) 18. Rxd8 fxe4 19. Rxa8 Rxa8 20. Bd5 and 21. Bxe4 wins back a pawn with a structural advantage too.

Moves 26 and 27: ......

A lot of moves made me facepalm. It all boils down to the begining. If you have a developmental lead, don't waste it. As previously stated castling was bad on move 7. Move 8 was a waste, move 10 was wrong rook ( why block off the a1 rook for so long?), 11 why not Bb3 since f7 being attacked, and my least favorite was move 23 Be2... why attack a useless knight? c4 is tremendously better, attack f7 while pinning the knight (if you move yours) that's coving h3 then slamming your queen there! Too many attacking options and you weren't mentally focused enough. EAT YOUR WHEATIES

I actually think I have some somewhere in the back of my pantry lol.  

This was a horrible game top to bottom.  Black was a terribad and I threw my queen to him.  

I picked up a win in a 30/0 after this last night and am back at it again this afternoon. Doing some tactics on Chesstempo and then playing standard games online.