Study your games and bad openings, it pays off!

My resignation and fail on June 30 - https://www.chess.com/game/live/50369387615

Went back and studied and found that knight to d5 was actually winning, astonished, I filed it away in my brain for the future.

Just so happens I had the exact same position the very next day! I implemented knight to d5 and it was all downhill for my opponent from there - https://www.chess.com/game/live/50440257633

Study your failed games, especially early opening mistakes, it will pay off!

Thanks for sharing. Yes, a lot of beginners don't spend the necessary time reviewing their previous games to understand their mistakes or weaknesses. Your previous games provide a rich source of opportunities to learn!

A very similar thing happened to me, in the early days. I actually need to refresh my memory of Englund Gambit counters - so thanks for the prompt I like to refer to this video: https://youtu.be/5YHeBEihgC0

Νο, your problem isn't studying openings, but rather missing simple tactics.

After 4...Qb4+ the move 5.Nc3?? is simply a blunder, which fortunately does not lose. And repeating the same blunder at a second game makes things even worse. If your study of the opening convinced you to drop a piece again, then you'd better have not done any study.

Instead of donating a bishop, the simple 5.Bd2 Qxb2 6.Nc3! is more or less winning for white (provided that you won't blunder badly again, that is). All you need to do is avoiding the cheap trap 6.Bc3? Bb4! which is all most Englund-loving patzers know about.

5.Nc3?? Qxf4 6.Nd5 is of course White's best and only chance, but it is far from actually, or factually winning. You won because Black played badly, and finally dropped a Queen for nothing.