Recent Game

Well, I'll be posting plenty of lost games for sure  but here is a game I just won recently against Shredder at 1228 ELO. I have Shredder on auto-adjust, and I think my current ELO rating according to Shredder is 1234, so it's a pretty even match I believe.

I did win the game but I am not completely satisfied with my play. I played this game much by instinct, and am wondering where I can improve (and what moves I made that hurt my play). I'd really appreciate all constructive comments and criticism!

after 52. a6 followed by Kd8 you could have finished the game with move 53. Rb8

I think 7. Nd2 would have been better followed by c4, but a move calculator  says you should have traded the bishops and then played c4. I think queens gambit lines would have been good here.

15...f5 is horrible. It frees up the space that was just taken away. Now black has no choice except to move his rook and lose castleing privileges

19... dxc4 ruins blacks pawn structure and still ends in the Queen exchange suggested by the move engine. I probably would have transfered the pin on the king to the knight with 19...Nc6

Why not 26. Bxd7? I can see that you aren't afraid to trade peices and it takes away the attacker on the pawn and you are trying to protect.-- Oh, there it is on move 28, only now black owns the C-file.

After move 30, black is incapable of protecting all of the pawn islands that he has created for himself and rather than focus on your weak kingside, he makes an absurd peice trade that really secures the win for you.

I see that you already put a question mark by 8.e4. Giving up a central pawn, a knight, good pawn structure, and center control in exchange for a weak bishop was a horrible idea. If you really wanted to free up space for you bishop, fianchetto it to the a3-f8 diagonal in this position. I'm really surprised that you won. Danny Rensch has Pawn Structure 101 videos on this site that may be as helpful to you as they were to me.

Note that 8.e4?? actually loses a piece.

I know. I'm thinking of changing the question mark to a blunder mark. That was a really poorly thought-through idea. I agree that 15..f5 was a horrible mistake. It really creates a sort of outpost square for the bishop on e5.

I will have to check out Danny's Pawn Structure videos- I've watched tons of his other ones already.

Thanks a lot for the comments and analysis! I'm beginning to be convinced that the only reason I won was because of Shredder's poor playing on occoasions. 

I know- I calculated that one after the move. Sigh...