End game Analysis

You played very well up to the 25....Bxb3?? strategic blunder (yes, you had tactics there that you missed, but that's actually secondary! even without the tactics Bxb3 was a terrible idea) -- and by the way all your wounds in this game are self-inflicted. You outplay your opponent nicely and simply in the first 2/3rds of the game, and then you just implode. It's in your pawn play. Throughout the game and very obviously in the end you badly misunderstand pawn structure. Clueless is not too strong a term. Your opponent did not play the ending strong, he played it rather mediocrely. But your bad pawn play made things easy for him.

This isn't a case of "study endgames" in my opinion. (Although studying pawn endings wouldn't be a bad idea at all). It's more of a middlegame issue. You need to understand basic strategies around pawn structure. What makes pawns weak, or strong, and the absolute necessity of attacking the weak points in your opponent's position. Weakness is almost always in the pawn structure. As Philidor said, Pawns are the soul of chess.

Bxb3 was as strategically blind as hanging your Queen would be tactically blind. Ok, everyone makes mistakes... but later your bad misplaying of your kingside pawns shows that this isn't a "one time" oversight, but something fundamentally missing from your chess.

36...a4 was tactically tricky with your pawns... the issue is strategic.  You don't seem to understand that at a certain point, the weakness or strength of groups of pawns clustered about the board is all the game is about. That and how well the remaining pieces on the board are able to attack or defend those pawns.

You ask after 15.Rfd8 "should I have played Rad8 to keep my f7 pawn protected?" IMO, no protecting f7 is very passive there, you played correctly, you wanted your a-rook available for action on the c file (which is exactly whre it ended up)... but, anyway, those back rank rook moves are always iffy. Some chess-wit once remarked that it's always very easy to know which rook you should move: it's the other one.

Hey JG27Pyth,

Thank you for your time and patience to analyse and reply.

I have been losing quite a lot of games because of bad pawn play.

In this game, I wanted to lock my king side and work on the queen side, but instead messed up the structure. I would have resigned at 36; but hoped the last ditch miscalculated a4 attempt work work out. If I tried to protect my e pawn, White king would go around the f pawn and eat up my g pawn. White also had all his pawns on the 2nd row which could be guarded by his rook.

36.a4 wasn't miscalculated -- I think it was the best you had in an already bad spot. (an engine probably finds something better... but at any rate I understand the idea you had there). That move wasn't the loser for you. Things had already gotten out of hand.

There is tons to learn about rook and pawn endings they are notoriously difficult -- but in general you've got to take care with your pawns... you can't play pawn moves like you do piece moves. Pawn moves are irrevocable, they only go one way, there's no going back. There's no undoing pawn mistakes. Don't loosen them up unless you've got a damn good reason. 

I can't teach you what to do -- I'm studying this stuff myself right now (and there's a lot to consider) -- but I can guarantee that sloppy or careless pawn play will lose a lot of games. In the middle game as well as the endgame.

You wrote: I wanted to lock my king side and work on the queen side, but instead messed up the structure.

Yes --the execution was flawed. You didn't lock it -- locking it would have been better... but honestly I'm not sure that's even really the right thing to do, you had a Kingside majority and the right thing might have been to play more aggressively with the Kingside and try to get a passer of your own -- then you've got counterplay, and a chance at getting his pieces busy doing something other than attacking you.  Being purely defensive is usually indicative of a game that's about to be lost. At any rate though, the execution of the "lock the kingside" idea just did not work.