i screwed up...


true, but their position proved usefull after 17. Bc4. and once Qb3 i make a nice attack at the king and he loses power on the open a file. (feel free to tell me im wrong)

21...exd5 was the move i should have played... but had i played it, could i have pulled off a victory????

"but their position proved usefull after 17. Bc4."
So why not 2. Bc4? Or 2. Nf3 and decide where to go with the bishop later. The move 2. Bd3 is a waste of time since the bishop will not be useful on this square sitting behind a pawn.
And what would happen if instead of 20. ... Nf4, black had played 20. ... c6. Then your bishop really feels the pinch of all those pawns blocking one if its diagonals.
The dark squared bishop is only useful in defending the a1 square. Quite a lowly task for a bishop.
Anything is possible, but after 21. exd5 black's light squared bishop can go onto the diagonal that attacks your king while your bishop still isn't going anywhere, your pawn on f3 is hanging, your queen is nearly trapped by Rc8, and black still has an extra pawn of material.

you know what, your totally right though. i screwed up earlier on than i thought. leaving my bishops closed like that ruined me. ive been playing chess for about 2 years now and i cant seem to get over the 1300 mark. granted i dont play as much as i would like and i dont have time to study like i would like either. but i was pretty happy to be keeping pace with a 1600 in this game!!!
he may have had the advantage, but i think i was doing okay


Loomis, one of the unfortunate problems I have when playing games that span over several days is that I occasionally forget what im doing. I think originally 20 Nf4 the idea was to follow with 21 Bg2 to harass the rooks. When pawn played 21 Qxc7 I opted for a change in plan to harass the queen instead.
23 Qxb6, yea ive made mistakes like that one too. I think everyone has at some point. Otherwise i was going for 23 Bg2

thanks xilbus...
that actually really helps to see it from blacks perspective and to hear your annotation. once i get better at using this annotation software, i will use it for most all of my games...
thanks again!!
pawn

thanks