Honestly, after blundering the knight, and the a-pawn, there wasnt much to learn after that. You would be better off posting a loss.
Move 13 - did you realize your c-pawn was hanging? Your knight move protects it. (Temporarily. Your knight can be kicked, but that's no big deal, since you immediately move the pawn to safety.)
Move 18 "pinning the rook" - I don't know what you're trying to say. There are no pinned rooks in this position. Are you hoping that d4 will somehow vanish so your queen can attack the a1 rook? (Oh, now I do see that it's possible, but only if white plays poorly.) How many moves would it take? Won't White move his b1 knight in the meantime? (If I were White I'd consider Nd2 or Nc3 immediately, to kick your pesky e4 knight away.)
EDIT: maybe you just meant that your b8 rook is now tied down guarding your back rank against an incursion by the White queen?
Move 26 and next few moves - clearly room to improve your tactics here. The reason you're having these tactical problems is that White has unchallenged access to the A and B files, plus a strong knight outpost on e5. The hole on e5 was something you should have been thinking about since move 3.
Thanks for the feedback.
Move 13, I did not notice my c-pawn was hanging. Protecting it with the knight was coincidentally lucky to my intentions of developing the knight. So what's my takeaway here - never leave a piece hanging even if it's safe temporarily?
Move 18, maybe I'm misusing the phrase, but I see the d4 pawn cannot move because my queen would take the rook. but now I realize that's silly because the d4 pawn cannot move anyway, and it's protected by the f3 pawn, so really it's no threat to the rook.
Move 26, correct - I made some bad moves here and your insight is valuable. I guess the takeaway here is I should avoid letting my opponent own a center square (e5) with a minor piece for any length of time?
Thank you for the feedback.
Move 18 - for future reference, what you were attempting was a "skewer" of the a1 rook. It's silly for two reasons: 1) that pawn isn't going anywhere - this is really important, it shows you didn't make any concrete calculations before choosing your move - and 2) the queen is more valuable than the rook, so the skewer is worthless if white defends the a1 rook (by moving the b2 knight).
Move 26 - You specifically need to keep knights off of squares in your fourth rank or closer. (A central knight is extra strong, but one towards the wing is almost as bad, or worse if it's near your king.) This is one of those broad rules like "don't let a rook onto your first or second rank" , that holds up in practically every case. The way you prevent the enemy from occupying those squares is to guard them. Every pawn moves entails weakening some squares. After 1... d5, your d-pawn can no longer guard e5. You can still guard it with your f-pawn, or your dark-squared bishop, or a knight, but as the game goes on you remove each of those possibilities. 3... Nf6 blocks the f-pawn (temporarily). Losing your Nc6 (move 7 ) removes that defender. Exchanging black-squared bishops on move 15 takes away that potential defender. (Also, after move 17 your h8 rook is trapped and out of the game for a while. That's a big part of why you end up having trouble defending squares like a8, b8. I'd be very tempted to exchange queens. You're down material, which normally means you want the queens on the board, but if you can't use that rook you're in trouble eventually. On the other hand, the game shows there may be enough time to free the rook later...) You still have a knight and the f-pawn, but the knight is off doing other stuff and the pawn is blocked after move 18. (Interesting possibility: 18... Qd6 19. QxQ pxQ and you've recruited a new pawn to the job of guarding e5.)
In the actual game, your opponent blundered his queen which let you eventually seize the initiative and the lead. Without that, you'd have a game that was still pretty even but very hard to play for both sides. (White has his own problems: his bishop and one knight are badly placed, and the closed center makes it harder for him to use his rook majority. [He soon solves that last part by attacking on the a and b files.]) Guard e5 and you will find yourself with a lot more breathing room.
Truth is chess is about paying attention to what's happening. From there is about what can you do, what's good for you, and what may happen to you if and when you don't do what's better for you.
Studying and practicing helps to identify those things, but nothing will help those who don't make a serious effort to pay attention to. Blundering material often qualifies as "not paying attention to", because if someone knows how to move the pieces then he can see the threat.
