Your opponent was mistaken. You could have merely put the black king in check, forcing it to h8, but other than that, no real threat.
Could I have won earlier?
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no i dont think so but you could have started a very strong attack because his king was exposed. Also he had that game won in the end game but he blundered so my suggestion is work on your endgame =] if you have not discovered him yet there is a great guy on youtube that makes chess videos called jrobichess. he helped me alot in my beginner stages. there is also a great wed sit called chessvidoes.tv that really helped me. books are good to but i like videos because they are easier and they are free. i will post the links to both these sites.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jrobichess
I'm a fairly novice chess player, so I'm wondering about something my opponent mentioned in the game below. According to omoeko, I had a chance to win right after black castled with its 11th move. I'm not seeing it. I could have put black in check with my bishop, with no threat to it, but I can't quite figure where I would go from there (other than knowing that having the king in that corner is a nice place to be). What did I miss?