I feel like I'm losing the advantage after 20 or so moves

In my most recent game I felt like I was winning and indeed according to the report, the game was a giveaway and I had the advantage up to a certain point. 

I blundered when I let my Queen get pinned to my King by the enemy rook and I couldn't get out of it. 

I also feel that in other games I'm perhaps too passive. 

I'm not sure really how to progress to the next level either. I feel like I'll be stuck around the 700 mark forever more.  Maybe I need to study openings and learn how to do one or two properly. The trouble is at this level opponents don't always play the opening as it is in a text book. 

Some of the openings I've seen have been wild. 

If anyone could have a quick glance at this game and tell me where I went wrong (rather than going off what the report tells me).  

I've been trying to develop solidly and was attempting the black lion of sorts. I've also been trying the goldfish method put forward by chess boot camp, but in this game I guess I took my eye off the ball.  

"Maybe I need to study openings and learn how to do one or two properly. The trouble is at this level opponents don't always play the opening as it is in a text book. "

You are correct -- opponents don't play openings as it is in a text book, so learning some openings won't help very much at this point.  You need to learn opening *principles* -- and they will lead you to good openings, particularly against crummy openings like your opponent played.

The first two rules are: control the center and develop pieces.  So, your first mistake was 3...Be6,  That's not an ideal place for a bishop, plus it blocks your e pawn, which makes it harder to get your dark bishop out.  (Further -- generally but not always -- knights before bishops).  So I would have played 3...e5 to control the center or 3...Nc6 to develop the knight.

4...d5 is ok, but it makes one wonder, why spend two entire moves in the first four moving your pawn up two spaces.  No need to force the action, I would have played 4...Nc6

6 . . . again, I would have played Nc6 -- which has an added advantage of making it easier to castle early queen side

7...Nd7.  It's great that you finally moved that knight out, but at d7 it blocks your queen in, and now we see that your 6...c6 prevented you from playing Nc6

13...e6 is good -- you're finally moving your e-pawn (and now your light bishop is free to roam the country!)  But why not e5 to control more center?

13...Bb4 -- if you're going to check him, perhaps ...Qa5 would have been better.  It'd be stronger, and, if attacked, has more flexibility to move around

BTW at 15 you had a *great* move.

Here's a lesson: always look to see what's in the same file as your king and your opponent's king.  Always always.  (Diagonals too, of course, but files are easier to see).  Because that's ripe for a potential pin or discovered check.  You learned that the hard way yourself later on when you parked your queen in front of your king for too long.  So look at this position after white moves 15

If here black plays 15...e5 and white follows with 16 dxe5, you have a discovered check by 16...Bxe5+ and white is in a heap of trouble!

So -- again: it's not *openings* it's opening *principles*, positioning, elementary tactics -- those will get you much further at your stage than openings.

Check out this youtube:  Beginner Chess Guide | Most Typical Mistakes #4 

It's a chess coach playing a low level player.  He starts off with Queen's Gambit, but by the *second move* black plays a terrible move.  There's no book at this point.  So the chess coach just plays opening principles.  Nothing more.  And he destroys his opponent.  To a newbie, the low level player didn't make such bad moves.  To someone who understands opening principles, one can see that some of his moves were awful.  Not because he left pieces hanging, but he didn't focus on the center or developing his pieces, and then got overrun.

Good luck!

Thank you for that detailed and constructive response.

I will respond to some of the points.

7...Nd7 - I played that as I've seen it in the black lion. However that might only work if white has played certain moves. I think I need to wind back from this. I think some of my earlier victories including a 6 game winning streak went to my head. 

I think my opponents own development was less than good.  I thought that by him not being able to castle and the fact I did would give me a huge advantage, even if just to "throw him off his guard." 

At move 20 cxd5....cxd5+ I had a discovered check which I knew in itself could easily be escaped from but I thought 1. It seems to be a cool thing to do and 2. It again might throw him off guard. Make him feel he's on the backfoot.  

I just didn't see 21 rook c1, that was the point at which I realised it would be an uphill battle to try and win. 

Again thanks for the evaluation.  I will take it all on board. 

To  be sure, Nd7 has its place.  It protects both the c5 and e5 squares.  But that's done often when there's a lot of queen-side action, which you did not have at that point.  Or (flipping the board) here's a case where white's version -- Ne2 is often played:

One of the "book" moves here is Nge2, in order to help protect the other knight (which is pinned), and if black decides to use his bishop to take the knight, the other knight can recapture and white has avoided doubling his pawns.

Now that I think about it, I've seen such moves more often in Queen's Pawn games and in Sicilian.  But in 1e4 e5 I see it a lot less.  And in such games, usually, the best places for the knights are on c3 and f3 -- or c6 and f6

And, finally, I agree with you -- generally speaking, your opening was superior to his.  Your second move (Nf6) was terrific and follows another general rule: if you opponent brings his queen out way too early, just keep developing normally (if you can attack him while developing normally, all the better -- a dual purpose move is always good -- but developing pieces towards controlling the center is primary).

Note: he didn't move his king-side knight from its starting spot until move 33!  It's like he played the first 3/4 of the game spotting you two pieces (he didn't move that rook till even after that).  In part, he didn't move that knight because he had moved Qf3 so early, and so was blocking the normal place a knight enter the game.  

I've just been going over some of my earlier games. The one below is my first proper victory - my first actual victory was a resignation after only a few moves. 

In this I think I developed reasonably well. The report said it was a smooth game in which I had the advantage from start to finish. 

I think as I've played more I've tried to "play better" or run before I can walk. 

I've seen plenty of early wayward queen/bishop attacks in my games (like how the Nelson bot plays). I guess this is something beginners think looks good and might shock their opponents. I'm led to believe that deploying the queen too early is bad form. 

I'm going to go back to bare basics and good solid opening principals. Perhaps focusing on specific systems and defences is for later on.  

I play as black in this one.

I don't think you played the opening too badly at all for your level. Black was in a good position after the opening, but missed the tactic white had been playing for for a few moves. Tactics win games, no good strategic decisions can cope with the sudden unnecessary loss of material. 

3 quick points to make:

- Black's first goal should be to stop white from getting both e4 and d4 in the center. That's why I don't like 1. ...d6 at the lower levels. Hypermodern stuff can come later.

- Be6: that square is rarely a good idea. Look at that f8 bishop and hear it grinding its teeth, packing its bags, getting ready to just go home and do the dishes or something. It's all but given up hope of finding a nice place for itself. 

- Try and be more efficient. ...d6-....d5 in 2 moves, Be6-xd5; Nd7 (which I don't think is such a bad move) to b6 to c4 to xd2: also 4 moves played with a piece you trade off. In the opening, just try and play your pieces once. Preferably you develop by attacking your opponent's pieces. Therefore I think not playing 3. ... Bg4 (attacking white's queen) is much more of a mistake than any of your other opening moves. In the end, the goal is to have finished development while the opponent is still developing. You did almost achieve that goal, so that's why it's not that badly played. 

Second game is good! Your opening play there was above your level. For improving, focus on tactics and strategy. You'll shoot up in rating soon enough.

In the first sample game you shared, both players do positional mistakes in the opening, White even more than Black. White plays 2. Qf3 and 3. d3, which combination makes it impossible to develop the kingside properly without extra moves. As long as the queen is blocking f3 and the pawn is blocking the bishop, the only way to develop the kingside would be Be2 and Nh3 - not a good square for the knight. You could have tried to make them suffer a bit longer by playing c5 and Nc6, which would make it more difficult to play d4 and free the bishop.

In the Pirc your first move 1. ... d6 should already tell that you want to fianchetto the bishop since there are already two pawns blocking the a3-f8 diagonal. Hence g6 and Bg7 is the normal plan as it is faster (after d6 was played), gives the bishop the long diagonal and adds a piece to the defence of the king (assuming kingside castling, which is the usual choice in the Pirc).

Otherwise sholomsimon already pointed out several issues in your game. Still you had a playable position until you blundered your rooks. Your second sample game was more solid. The usual choice instead of 3. ... d6 is 3. ... Nc6 (Four Knights game), which leaves the diagonal for the bishop, but d6 is not bad as you still can develop the bishop to e7. If you play like you played in that game, the openings will not cause you problems until you start playing clearly higher rated opponents than you face now.

At that point in the game I was thinking 1. About the discovered check on whites queen after the exchange of pawns. 2. 19...h6 was supposed to be the beginning of a pawn storm up that side of the board. 

I must admit I was stalling at that point and was trying to think of what to do.  

Your suggested moves are prudent, game changing but also simple - everything was there for me to win this one.  I let it slip through my fingers.  

Back to your second game . . . I think your opening was pretty good.  There were a few times when you were moving a piece back and forth for not enough good reason -- something that RAU spotted in your first game.  (Note how many times you move the kingside knight and also your dark bishop).

I also agree with RAU that you seem to know opening principles (you should keep learning more however) well enough that you should definitely move into learning tactics.  Lots of good stuff here on chess.com as well as other sites.  That will help your game immensely.

Interesting sholomsimon, having a quick run through of the second game you can see that I move my kingside knight a dark bishop to try to attack and only really moved them if attacked or if I could attack my opponent.  

I grant that a better player would've probably not left pieces hanging as my opponent did.  If I cast my mind back to that game I was probably thinking "I can't believe he's letting me do this."

I just played this game (white) and tried to stick to a good solid opening. I managed to prevail (my opponent resigned before running out of time). 

Yeah, you're probably right -- I was looking very quickly.  So I take that back. 

One strategic quibble I have is when you moved your dark bishop all the way across the board to grab his double pawn.  That pawn was stuck and wasn't going anywhere (not only wasn't his a5 going nowhere, but neither was his a4 pawn) and probably wasn't worth taking with that bishop.  You had the beginnings of a great attack going -- which you did resume a bit later --  and you interrupted that attack to grab that pawn.  A better opponent *might* have been able to shore up his defenses during those two moves.  (Again, I only took a brief look).

But I'm quibbling.  You had a much stronger position at that point and could afford the loss of tempo.

All in all, a pretty good effort.  BTW, what speed game was that?

I've been playing 30 minute rapid games.  The reason being it gives me enough time to think moves through (hopefully) and I've less chance of blundering due to time running low.  

In that last game (the most recent one I posted) my opponent took his time more than I and almost ran his clock down before he resigned. 

Good choice.  Excellent.  I keep thinking I never have the time, and instead I play blunderfest 10-minute rapid.  I gotta start with the 30-minute games.

I find it's the right length of game for me. Not too short that you are under time pressure but not too long that you lose interest or have to abandon the game because your dinner is ready. 

I did post a thread last week concerning timewasters who let their clocks run down when they're losing but I've been assured that as your ranking goes up you play more dedicated players who wouldn't (or shouldn't) do that.

A number of videos on YT also state that 30 - 60 minute games are the best time span for beginners. 

I do play against the bots, but usually rush those games even though there is no time pressure. I've beaten Nelson once which felt like I'd jumped a hurdle. 

Anyhow, thanks for the insight and tips (and to everyone else who responded), it's much appreciated. 

30 minute helps a lot. But I've lost games I had big advantage in , when ran out of time because not good at end game. that's frustrating after a hard fought game

My endgames are not good unless I have plenty of high value material on the board. Another annoying thing is when you're well up on material and blunder into a draw by stalemate. 

It's all good fun though.  

A game I played this morning. So much for solid devolpment.

My opponent made a lot of pawn moves/pushes early on which I've been told isn't good form for openings.  He moved a3 and his queen before any of his knights or bishops. He didn't move his second knight until move 32 and his light bishop until 35. 

I tried to lock off the middle and went for a check but blundered my bishop on move 8. 

From that point on I couldn't get on the front foot.  I couldn't find a way through his pawn wall. 

Is there a name for the attack/opening he played? 

Yes, it's called 'bad'. 

You didn't completely follow the advice though. You've moved your d-pawn 3 times in the opening 6 moves! That's not really efficient. In particular I wouldn't have played ...d4, as it closes the center. If your pieces are ready for battle, you should look for a way to open up the position. Better play could have been 3. ... Bc5 (get that bishop out of there, before you block it in with ...d6!), then maybe castle, then ...d6 and develop your other pieces. At some point then you could be looking for a way to play ...d5. 

Also, you just blundered your own piece. No strategy can cope with the loss of significant material. That being said, if you hadn't lost your piece, your position would have been significantly better already. If anything, this game should show how important tactics are. If you lose your queen, your opponent can almost play the worst kind of chess you could think of and still likely win. If you had the same amount of pieces though, you would have crushed your opponent.