Followed opening principles, still lost, unsure what I did wrong.

Could someone break down why this game didn't go well for me, even though I followed the opening principles? (I think I did, anyway)

Just to clarify, my understanding of the opening principles are:

- Move the D & E Pawns all the way out.

- Move the bishops and knights out.

- Castle

- Consolidate the queen and the rooks together (I usually never get this far though because the opponent is already attacking me)

Is there.... something I'm not quite getting?

Yeah you pretty much followed opening principles alright but you mismanaged the e5 square. You dropped your knight there for a pawn after you took away it's escape square which was d3 with your queen. Then you didn't guard the pawn on e5 and it got taken by a knight. The opening wasn't the problem you got careless in the middle game.

Thank you, but I'm not quite sure what I was supposed to do differently. My knight was threatened by a a pawn, and it needed to be moved somewhere, preferably close to the center of the board.

I think I'm not getting something fundamental...

@Blizzardlizzard answered.  You moved your queen to d3, your knight's only safe place to retreat.  Your opponent caught the blunder and you lost your knight.  What don't you understand?  You blundered.  Don't do that.  You don't move the queen to d3, the knight has a place to go if its attacked by a pawn.  

Wait... We're talking about 8. Ne5 right being the blunder, correct? My knight couldn't have moved to d3 at all, nor was my queen on d3. Clearly I'm not understanding something terminology wise, at the very least.

I'm confuzzled. I'm not very good at chess.

Yes. You have imbibed a static notion of opening principles that may be prone to dogmatism when misunderstood.

Your job in the opening is to mobilize your pieces with minimal loss of time. Aim to reduce your own vulnerabilities and coordinate your pieces. Control the center.

The purpose of the moves that you described aim at these principles. Your opponents will always struggle to interfere, so you must be prepared to attend to the moves and position before you with concrete analysis, rather than playing standard moves by rote.

You allowed your opponent to drive your knight from f3, advanced it to a forward square where it was vulnerable to attack, and then cut off its escape. That the move after Qd3 was identified by a computer as the error, if true, suggests to me that you might have profitably sacrificed the knight to create vulnerabilities in the camp of your opponent. 12.Nxf7 catches my eye, although I haven't taken the time to work out all the details. I do see that you would have active pieces, a less vulnerable king, and control of the center.

Thank you for the explanation. Do you think sticking to a fixed set of opening moves vs just opening haphazardly with my gut is still going to be useful for me as a learning/playing tool, given my rating? I don't really understand the underlying mechanics, or for that how to anticipate opponent strategies any more than 1 or 2 moves into the future...

Or is chess just not for me? (I've been playing for 6 months and never broke 1000)

No. Do not stick to a fixed set of moves. The moves you tried are based on solid principles but you must account for what your opponent does. 

Some players take years to break 1000. Some get there quicker. Some people never get there. Give chess more time. Six months is nothing.

Practice tactics. Good opening play gets you to the middle game. Play that well and you might reach a favorable ending. That's where the game is won.

Oh. I thought that Black was executing some sort of sophisticated, nigh-incomprehensible strategy whose machinations I could not begin to fathom.

It is incredibly difficult for me to win without my opponent blundering. (So much so that I regard it as my strategy. No, really.) Are you saying that with a well defended opponent I should just use pawns to kamikaze their position?

The opening principals are just a means to an end, they're not what literally makes a position good.

Having said that, your position was better. When you're ahead in development then open lines. Like h4 on move 7, f3 or h3 on moves 9 and 10 and Nxf7 on move 12.

(Lines are files, ranks, and diagonal, and "opening" them means to remove pawns from them)

Take a look at how another player countered the same opponent's ideas.

And by the way, it's a common beginner misconception that when their opponent plays a non-standard opening that there should be an immediate way to punish it.

Sure they may blunder tactics or mate, but more usually non-standard openings are punished in the middlegame... not with a quick win but with a good position that may take another 50 moves to win, and even strong GMs sometimes fail to punish quirky openings... all this to say, don't let it stress you out. Following opening principals is just so you can enter the middlegame with a solid foundation.

Let me also say that for someone who has been paying 6 months, you're doing fine. I love chess, but it is a cruel game, and the occasional disaster is just part of the process. I think the opening went quite well for you--opening principles really do help! But at some point you will usually have to do something violent to turn your better opening into something concrete. Here are a couple of thoughts on how you can reap the reward for your principled play.

Occupying e5 can be beneficial, but the thing to notice is that it can be driven out of that particular position at any moment by ...d6. If you are going to put your knight there, then you need to keep thinking about how you are going to react to ...d6. That sort of thing is easier to do in a slow game. Was this a slow game? I am only about 1500, so maybe my judgment isn't so good, but 8 Nd2 doesn't look so bad to me, with thoughts of e5 and Ne4.

Has anyone commented on this move? To my 1500 brain, it already looks as though White should be thinking in terms of castling on the queen side and advancing pawns on the king side and in the center.

I think 6.a4 is OK.  In my notes, I was recommending instead of Bc4, the plan Be3 Qd2 taking aim at Black's weak pawn at h6.  White could then castle queenside, although with such a firm grip on the centre, White doesn't need to rush to castle.  You should castle before opening the centre, but sometimes, White waits to see where Black will castle first.  After Be3 Qd2, it would be hard for Black to castle kingside.

I thought the idea behind Ne5 was to follow up with Nxf7 a la Cochrane's gambit in Petroff's defence intending to draw Black's king out into the open, and go for checkmate.  I think the 12.Bf4?? sacrifice is unsound.  Black's king remains quite safe, and he pockets the piece.

That's not simple as Black's setup is highly flexible. If you don't play a4 there then Black will play ..b5 himself, and that's not desirable since ..b4 will always be a threat.

One should never blindly follow chess principles. White did play according to the rules, but that was not enough simply because he failed to open up the position. This means that f3 was necessary at some point. Expecting to get a "deserved" win just because you played according to the rules is like expecting to have a jolly life just because you are a good dude; life, just like chess, doesn't work like that. If you think your opponent played a lousy opening then the only way to prove him wrong is to do something concrete.

10.b4, 11.Qd3, 12.Bf4 are big mistakes. Those moves have no real purpose, and do nothing to punish Black for playing like that. When your opponent is behind in development you need to open up the position, so here White needs to make f3 or d5 work. If you give Black time, and 10.b3, 11.Qd3, 12.Bf4 are doing that, then Black will consolidate and solve his problems.

Hey, I`m rated around 1500 and started playing chess quite seriously as a hobby last autumn. A major breakthrough in chess understanding came to me when I realized that the point of chess isn`t to have a "pretty" position. You aren`t going to win automatically just by having a pawn centre and nicely coordinated pieces. It could be helpful to your overall aim of the game, sure, but chess isn`t a beauty contest, it`s all about getting checkmate, or tricking/forcing your opponent to give up material to avoid checkmate.

In your game you should have thought about ways to get at your opponent`s king. For example where was your opponents king located? On the e-file. You already had a bishop trained on the f7 square next to your opponents king Could you try to open lines to get a rook on the e -file?  Castling, playing rook e1 then pushing d5 and later e5 and f4-f5 (in some order) instead of pushing your a and b-pawns would have gotten you way farther in this game. You had  a big centre and a lead in development. Your opponent had an exposed king and no development. what you do in those cases is you push pawns to open lines towards the enemy king, then just point all your artillery on the king. That should be number one priority if your opponent leaves the king in the middle and pushes pawns. 

On move 9 you said you didn`t see any hanging pieces or obvious attacks. I see one attack you could try: you are castled, so you can start thinking about pushing your f-pawn. I would probably play f3, then follow up with a push in the centre to try to weaken f7 and open up the e-file.