Intermediate Planning - And Why It's Wrong

I've been seeing a lot of this lately on chess.com, and it's led to a lot of rather fancy games on my part, but I'd like to talk about something that I've noticed holds a lot of good calculators and otherwise talented players in the "B" class rating range (1600-1800 OTB).  What is it?  Understanding dynamic play.

In several games I've recently played, I've noticed players going out of their way to achieve certain 'setups' or static advantages (pawn structure being the main one) and completely disregarding other factors such as time and dynamic compensation.  This will all make more sense in a second... let me show you a fairly typical example.  It's not quite as beautiful as some of the games I've had but here, my respectably rated opponent makes several huge positional errors.  However, these positional errors are only errors because of other dynamic factors.  Allow me to explain.

The following game is annotated (rather harshly) to point out what I believe to be the number one reason some players can become masters in a few years while others play for 40 years and never break 1800: Superficial vs. Real positional understanding.

Hopefully this game helps someone achieve a deeper understanding of how powerful the bishop pair can be when combined with a lead in development. 

And one final note to 'intermediate' players who have been stuck in a rut for the past 90 or so years... Initiative matters. Even in closed positions. Sorry :P.

Okay, I'm out! Hope you enjoyed my blog! PEAAAAACE!