Threats and Sacrifices: Part I

This is the first part of a two-part series of games in which through my own bumbling ways I often found myself either stymied or at an obvious disadvantage, and through a process which no doubt involved substantial quantities of dumb luck was able to eek out a victory.  The theme for these games is, as you may have guessed by now, the use of threats and sacrifices to accomplish your goals.

Being that I am not a very good chess player, many of the good moves I made in these games were the result of having dug myself into huge holes which I ought not to have been in at all.  Hence the exercise of annotation.  I believe it was Kasparov who said that his biggest critic is himself.  It is my hope through these notations to discover flaws in my game, determine their cause, and in the future to avoid them entirely.  Hopefully you can gain something as well, if nothing more than a hearty laugh with every painful blunder as you follow along.