Broke nearly all opening principles, but still won easily

Hi Guys,

I'd like your thoughts on how I could have done better in this game. It seems as if nearly every move by me was losing.

My opponent clearly violated the following oft-quoted "principles":

1) Don't use your Queen very early in the opening

2) Don't make more than a few pawn moves in the opening

3) Develop all your pieces as soon as you can

4) Don't move the pawns around your King and keep your King out of the open; castle early

5) Don't move the same piece twice in the opening

Yet he won easily!

I just couldn't get anywhere near his undeveloped pieces because of his pawn blockade and my position was so cramped. He never felt at all worried that I could counter-attack.

This game ended a 12-game winning streak

You also neglected opening principles. In particular, your 3 and 7 above. Some of 7 ended up being forced, but not all.

Develop your pieces before going on the attack. 

I see B00 as the opening.  This designation is generally given when the opening is called, 'irregular'.  Which is a polite way of saying, um, "Good luck with that".

White's game was made easy because black gave away space for 'free'.  How many times did that poor knight hop around? 

A better observation to make here is not to say what so-called "rules" my opponent abbrogated, but to examine what allowed that abbrogation to be successful.  In other words, "How did I err"?

Well, playing an actual opening might be an idea to start with so that these other "rules" might be given some meaning before one is overrun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_Game

You moved your pieces multiple times as well to attack the Queen, you need to introduce new pieces and make less pawn moves. I will describe some moves out of your game, not all of them. You resigned at the right time though, that position was over!

Move 7...d6: Why d6 when you can play Ngf6? Then you play Nc6, moving the knight for the 4th time, why not develop the bishops, trying to develop your small pieces so you can castle, have a safe king and go for the counter attack. 

Move 9... Nb4:  Moving the knight for the fifth time.

Move 10... A5, if you move a piece so it supports another piece(s) or pawns then this is much preferable then pawn moves. A5 is a bit of a tempo loss, not developing. Also, if white plays a3 then the a5 move is really a tempo loss because you have to retreat the knight again (6th move). If you really want the knight there, why not things like Qb6 and even a pawn move like d5 (protecting the knight with the dark squared bishop is better because d5 frees up your bishops and tries to contest the centre!

Move 16..Nb6, why move this knight again? Better to castle, and get the major rooks out to apply for centre pressure. Dont worry about his pawn storm, he has major weaknesses himself, you could even look for checks, for instance Qh4+ sometimes in these positions.

Your opponent played bad as well with some questionable pawn and queen moves, but he got a few pawns out of it which makes up for a lot. Also if you attack the queen then try to introduce new (minor) pieces to attack it, don't attack with the same minor piece again and again! Because the queen is much more mobile then the minor piece you won't succeed and probably lose a pawn or more.

I advise you to not castle queenside in these kind of positions as well, it gave your opponent the winning tactics on the D-file, also castling didn't help make your king safer ( which is one of the reasons you castle, besides developing the rook)

You know the OP is playing black this game? :)

Why play 2... Nc6 when you can play 2... exd4?

5... Nc6 is just good for you, instead of the nonsensical 5... Nf5??

9... Be6 and 9... Nf6 are both far better than 9... Nb4?

10... a5? isn't ideal either. Now b5 is permanently weak by virtue of the fact that White can just put a piece there and there's nothing you can do about it. Why not just play either 10... Qa5 threatening ... Nc2+ stuff or 10... Nc6 moving the knight back to a decent square?

The position you got out of the opening after 13. f3 is ugly already. White has a clean extra pawn, a significant space advantage, and targets on d6 and b5 to aim at. Instead, he played a baseless and unsound idea with 14. g4? Be7 15. g5 Nd7 16. h4 when Black can get back in the game by 16... h6 cracking open the h-file and creating targets by breaking up White's kingside.

Instead, you shuffled your pieces around, trusting that White advancing the kingside pawns would punish itself.

After the game's 17... Qc7?, White has several chances to win a pawn with Nb5 uncovering the Bb2. Even without a bishop on the long diagonal, it's dangerous. 17... O-O is much better.

After 23. gxf6 it's over. White is up three clean pawns, and his position is no less ugly than yours.

So why did you lose? Put simply, it's because you broke more principles than your opponent did. You also blundered a pawn in the opening.

You moved the same piece many times for no reason.

You created weaknesses in your position for no reason.

You made too many pawn moves for no reason.

You never completed development.

You never castled.

Most importantly, you didn't try to punish your opponent for breaking these principles.

Sure, your opponent was awful too, but you were just as bad. When you add the kind of losing position you had after 13. f3, it doesn't turn out well.

This is all you really need to do to win at the sub-1200 level. Just follow the principles and punish your opponents for breaking them.

He got away with it this time but if he violates them all the time and gets too cocky he's going to become marked like players who announce they won't castle their entire life when other players hear that at the club or online their ears perk up and fight to be the first to get him with forks knives other sharp cutlery in their tactical tool box.

If you violate general principles there has to be a good reason to justify why like if I can skewer my opponent or triple fork him and take expensive merchandise off the board like his Queen Rook and Bishop at no cost or risk to myself at all I'm going to do it even though it would mean violating a rule like moving a piece twice.

That's different compared to a guy who violates rules for the sake of violating rules from move 1 and ignores King safety sprinkles his pawns without care or wastes time with garbage like 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 to intimidate his opponent and gets nowhere fast.

Many thanks, all, for your thoughts, especially jbent02 for your annotations. I can see now a number of more sensible things I could have done differently, instead of trying to simply push his Queen back. And that I violated several opening principles myself.

I wanted to castle kingside but I was worried his advanced kingside pawns would easily break up my king's safety. Then I planned to castle queenside even though it was less good, but by then his tactics on that side were working.

I don't know the best course of action when my opponent pushes nearly all his pawns at my army. Look for pawn breaks?

Look to see how you can get behind his lines.  The advancing pawns are vulnerable to the rear and in their headlong flight tend to neglect proper defence of the king.  All it takes, sometimes is to sacrifice a pawn (or even a piece) to break through and allow your army to flood through.

It is the adage that a pawn can never retreat which is supposed to give one pause before launching them all.  Re-read post #10.  Place that Nc5.  See how it's suddenly a monster?  Look at h5.  The kingside is getting closed.

So yes, look for pawn breaks.  Look for juicy outposts.  Look to block the advances. 

And...  Don't be so concerned with 'rules'.  Scan the board.  Make decisions.  Play chess.

Many thanks folks