It looked good until Qxb7

No your problems started way [EDIT] before Qxb7. Like 3. h4....4.Na3.....6.f3...and 7.Bb5???

3.h4 does nothing for you in the opening.  You don't want to advance a pawn without any real support and for no real reason.

4. Na3 is not a good square for the Knight (c3 is where it's supposed to be QG) and it ends up doubling your pawns.  Plus it has nowhere to go from there, which makes it almost useless to you.  It's good you haven't brought out your Queen and Rooks at this point which is what you wish you had done in your notes.  As a rule of thumb Knights and bishops first...then Queen and rooks

6.f3 not only stops his knight from advancing, it also stops you from developing your knight to f3 so that's kind of counterproductive for you.

11.Bb5 is not good at all.  You should only sacrifice if it's going to gain you something in return (like a sustained attack, initiative, etc.) not just a pawn and an easily parried check on his king.

And of course Qxb7, well we all make that mistake--grabbing the pawn with the queen only to get attacked by the rook. 

Always remember, attacking is good but only if it's going to gain you something.  Wildly throwing pieces at your opponent will not do anything to improve your chess.  Sometimes the best move is simple developing moves--bringing your army out, castling your king, etc.

Hi. First of all, I appreciate your own commenting on the game. It shows that you actually care, etc. Some notes:

If you ever play the queen's gambit, you HAVE to know the first few moves(or preferably, ideas) behind the "Declined" variation. 

3. The whole point of the QGD(indeed, 90% of chess openings) is to "control the center." To that end, 3.h4 is an inaccuracy, as it does nothing except protect the g5 square from his...queen, which, remember, is already protected by your bishop. Besides, you might want to play h3 sometime. 

4. Na3 was also bad, as your knight is ill-placed and after your opponent trades it off, you have doubled pawns, etc.better would have been 3. Nc3 and 4 Nf3, cementing your control of the center. 

5. Your comment on move 5 was spot-on. Your control of the center is diminished, your development is slowed, and your pawns are quite uncomfortable. 

Never drop a pawn or a piece if you can help it!!

9. Bd2 just gave up a pawn for free! I know you didn't "want to trade queens," but 90% of the time, trades are better than outright losing a pawn!

Generally, sacrificing a bishop should only be reserved for cases when most of your pieces are active. A sac that only develops your queen is not worth it. 

13. Taking the bait might have been stupid at other times, but please note that your queen could not have moved anywhere else without losing the rook!!

Getting into that position in the first place was what made everything downhill!

As a rule, develop your pieces, control the center, make no weaknesses in your pawns that your opponents can exploit, castle early. 

best,

draconlord

PS. If you really want to improve, feel free to invite me to a unrated "Training Game"

Edited moderator stumpyblitzer 

+4

 Not a euphemised or tactful comment, but a really useful comment, and I'm thankful for it.

"omg, a horrible game! ur rating must b about 1200 :/" is not helpful. Yeah, my rating's around 1200, so was yours once upon a time.

Oh, also...at least I've got some grasp of grammar.

A couple of pointers:

1. Try to keep to 2 or 3 pawn moves in the opening (i.e first ten moves), until you know better.

2. Develop your minor pieces, castle then bring the Queen out.

It's not a perfect recipe but it'll serve you well, for at least a year.

 Sorry I didn't mean to be offensive, and as you notice I did not participate in the unhelpful derisive part of this conversation.  We were all at your level at one time and all made the same mistakes you made in that game.  Even though I'm further along in my chess education than you, I still suck, still blunder, and still make many inaccuracies.  So I was trying to give you some helpful, albeit untactful, comments because whenever I post a game on here nobody really does the same for me.  Keep posting the games, keep analyzing your games, learn from your mistakes and your game will continue to improve.

King, I don't think she was referring to your writing, but the person who posted "omg, a horrible game! ur rating must b about 1200 :/"  I think you did a good job, in a nice way, of offering some solid pointers to help steer her in the right direction :-)

+8

Basically, the short of it is how to develop all of your pieces in a way that you don't get yourself into such a pickle.  I understand you like to attack, but first before you attack, you must develop and prepare for that attack. The Queen's Gambit has some attacking lines, but maybe study some ideas given from some of the stronger 1. d4 players first :-)  You could even learn the BDG, the Blackmar Diemer Gambit.  Let me show you how the opening goes, the main line, you might be interested in it as a good attacking line.  

Come on. Let's be kinder and gentler. He posted his game and even annotated it himself. That's how you begin to get better. Those who made fun of him were not helpful or even decent. Those who showed him how to open better and analyze better exemplified what the chess dot com community is all about. 

+12

35...Rh1 is also mate.

Lawdog, some people can't help but revel in their perfection - they were born with a smothered mate programmed into their bedtime stories! 

+64

Kingwraith, I liked your post, it was actually quite helpful and appreciated. I was using it as an example of constructive criticism.

So you're just gonna ignore all my comments?

*sighs*

EDIT: I just read the other comments and realized that Kingswraith and mine comments are almost identical. In my defense, a)the mistakes were fairly obvious, and b)I didn't actually read Kingswraith's comments before I posted, since it wasn't even on the page when I commented; I'm a slow typer, so Kingswraith just happened to pick up on the same, fairly obvious mistakes

(though I was capable to figure out that move 16 was not an actual blunder, and he did not :D)