Beginner questions

This is my first try at posting a game, bear with me.   I played black, and I hope I helped with my thinking during the game (however bad it may be)  I'm not hoping to be a GM, I just want to learn what I can and play better. Thanks in advance.  Brian

Study & practice tactics.  At your level it provides the #1 return on your study time investment.

13. ... Ne4. I think castling is better here. It's the way to get your rooks involved. The knight isn't so great on e4 because at some point white will play d3 and you have to move it anyway.

16. ... e4. Your pawns were stronger next to each other than in a chain. This moves creates weak points, one of which your opponent utilizes immediately with 17. Nd4.

18. ... g5. Now you start to implode. You let your opponent take a pawn for free. Your f5 pawn is no longer defended.

19. ... Na6 your opponent gave you the chance to defend your f5 pawn and you didn't take it.

23. ... Kd8. Your opponent is attacking your rook on f8. You could defend it by bringing the king off theback rank. Instead you just let him take it for free.

Didn't look at the whole game, but a few points based on what I skimmed through:

1  You're right about bringing the queen out early.  Chess knowledge is largely about knowing general guidelines of what to do and when and also knowing the exceptions.

It makes practical sense to learn the general guidelines first, apply them until they are second nature to you and THEN start getting fancy with the exceptions. Essentially => crawl before you learn to walk. 

So in this case, queen coming out this early  => "generally bad" meaning there should be a way for you to exploit it .. which you kind of did.

2. The previous post about practicing tactics makes perfect sense for you.  Not dropping pieces is more important for you at this stage than the other more nuanced mistakes.  You'll have a ton of time to worry about development, pawn structures and all sorts of fun stuff ... just focus on getting a few games under your belt when you're not dropping pieces en prise (missing tactics is more forgivable).

3. One of the biggest mistakes you can make at this stage is to trade when you're not supposed to.   In general, trade pieces (not pawns) when you're up material and everything else is safe AFTER the trade ....  Avoid trades when you're down material (unless you lose immediately), if you have more space or if your piece is more useful to you than his piece is to him.   In your case, his queen has wasted a ton of moves and when he wants to trade, either let him do the trading (defend your queen or move away and leave his queen on a silly do-nothing square. Why should you waste a move and let him liquidate an idiot queen for free?

In general, if you look at the games of stronger players,  you'll notice they abhor  trading unless the conditions are favorable for them after the trade. They NEVER like to give anything away for free (recapturing a piece after a trade is initiated)

Edit: The point I'm stressing here is that there is no room for superstitious "I like it when queens are off/on the board". Trades ought to either benefit one person or the other for a logical reason!

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

Before you play 16. ... e4 the pawns control the lines of squares c4, d4, e4, f4. Plus, you have the dynamic option of advancing the pawns. Once you advance the e-pawn, you lose your dynamic option -- the e-pawn can never go back, and it becomes more difficult to advance the d-pawn. Also, you give up control of the d4 and f4 squares. These squares are now available for your opponent's pieces. That's how your opponent infiltrated your position, by advancing his knight to d4 and eventually using that knight to capture your pawn on f5.

So, you actually have less control of the center by playing 16. ... e4 than if you leave the pawn on e5 and develop your pieces within that pawn structure.

All of this pawn structure stuff is really not nearly as important as not hanging your pieces though.

This site is ONLY for people planning on becoming GMs. Hopefully within the next six months. Cancel your account IMEDIATLY!        LOL!

You should have included in this post something like "I'm not trying to become a professional comedian."

I thought that was implied by the "LOL!".

I completely agree with everything Loomis said about the pawns -- and about the relative importance of pawn structure stuff...  Several places in this game you miss the most basic fundamental chess thing there is... you move pieces or pawns to places where they can be taken for free. Until you stop doing that, the niceities of an opponent bringing the Queen out early, or which pawns hold more space, or when to exchange, don't really matter.  Free material makes the rest of chess pretty pointless.

One last thing about the pawns... It's not like side by side pawns are "always better"...  sometimes holding a pawn back is the best thing, sometimes pushing a pawn is best... it very much should be evaluated according to a specific position.