I only looked as far as move 30, and that position pretty much tells me everything I need to know about the two players All your pawns are on dark squares. All his pawns are on light squares. Positions very similar to that have appeared in endgame books with the simple evaluation "white is completely lost."
In bishop of same color endgames it's almost always good to keep the pawns off the same color as your bishop. 3 basic reasons:
1) Putting the pawns on the same color as your bishop is redundant and effectively abandons the other color. This means the enemy can much more easily infiltrate.
2) Putting the pawns on the same color limits your bishop's mobility
3) Putting the pawns on the same color gives the enemy bishop targets.
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In fact this general rule is so important and useful, I think it's almost a crime that it isn't mentioned extremely often. I think this endgame knowledge should be more common than things like the Lucena and Philidor positions. Sure rook endgames are more common, but unlike those rook positions this is just pure logic and can be learned and understood quickly.
Even in bishops of opposite color endgames, it's useful to keep the pawns off the same color as your bishop. Even in bishop vs rook endgames. Only when you're setting up a passive fortress that you're 100% can't be broken down should you set all your pawns on the same color as your bishop.
I suppose on very rare occasions it's a good winning strategy, but pretty much only when their piece is dominated i.e. you put your pawns like that when it suffocates their position.
Hmmm. Thanks for the feedback. I do have a few questions though. I like your point about abandoning control of the other color with pawns/bishops on the same color. However, doesn't quite make intuitive sense to me. I feel like with my pawns being on the same color as the enemy bishop should actually restrict his movement too right? It seemed to me that if i could take away all of his dark squares and defend the pawn base with the king, then my bishop would be more active in the center (if somewhat blocked by my pawns on the flank)?
Or instead,...I basically lost the game with 19.Bxd5. Because at that point my pawns were already on dark squares and I traded off my light square control?
Also any tips for analyzing the position and attempting to improve it or at that point is it really just "hopeless" ?
!
Here is a recent daily game that I played. All things considered, I think I was actually doing pretty good until move 27 wherein I stared at the board for a long time and tried to come up with a plan (that ultimately failed):
At this point I chose 27.b4 with the goal of limiting the enemy bishop to slide in behind, while freeing my bishop to the other side of the board to try and get behind the pawn structure while my king holds the middle. I tried calculating, but it seemed to be way to complex... (i'm hoping there is some principles you all can enlighten me on instead?)
Feel free to critique specific moves of my endgame where I really screwed up. But honestly, I would *love* to have someone of you all just explain to me, in the general sense, how to assess the board from move 27 and come up with the right plan.
It seemed to me that as the endgame progressed every move I made just made my position a tiny bit weaker, (even though my entire goal in every move was to shore up weaknesses or create a threat). Meanwhile my opponents moves seemed less...weak. But I can't figure out why, just that ultimately i ended up in a losing position.
Thanks for the help!