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The Berlin - refuting the Ruy?
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A reason there may be a lack of comments could be because of how both players chose to play, which was more of a quick-trade game, leading into a much sooner endgame play type of game.
Your choice on trading your pieces in the way you did was well chosen because the Queen trade caused so much damage to your King's saftey in the future. You had managed to turn this into more of an advantage positionally, but your opponent could probably have played it better by preparing a double-up of his rooks while keeping your pieces at bay. From that he could cause some harm to your back ranks, positionally and maybe tactically too.
I am by no means an expert so don't take this as advice but I'm interesting in discussing some of your moves and the reasoning behind them.
Move 6, why did you use the d7 pawn rather than bxc6? The later would have opened up possibilities for your bishop, maintained your protection of the queen, and allowed you to get a pawn center later one (center pawns tend to be strong in later game), whereas this bled you from the center to the side.
Move 7, what makes Nf5 better than Ne4? It seems to me that the later would have been the stronger move. For that matter, are you sure the queens trade was ideal given the inability to castle afterwards?
Move 12 why not Bc5?
Move 15 - 16 do you think the exchange was worthwhile? Under the circumstances it doesn't really give you an advantage, what about g5 instead of Bb4?
Move 27, what do you think would have been better than b5? Why not c5 instead?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I think when he offered a draw, you was slightly better, but it wouldn't have made a difference. It was most likely a draw. Also when you started to move your queen side pawns you started to lose the game. You owned the d file and once you moved your rook away from it, he was able to trade off rooks and go further into a endgame with a stronger postion. I still thought it was draw up until you took his f pawn with your king
on move 6: dxc6 keeps my pawns together.
move 7. I think if Ne4 Qxd8 Kxd8 Re1 would kick the knight. (also it is theory)
move 12: blockading the pawn is quite important - but Bc5 would have been fine.
Move 15: Bb4 is a strong move - it doubles and isolates his pawns and gives me an opposite coloured bishop endgame that is so desirable.
27. c5 would mean i could never play b5 - perhaps Rb8 was better.
timeless_thoughts, I thought that I had an advantage up until i began to blunder - but thanks for your comments.
Here is an Otb game a played at a 40 minute time control, I got a nice position from the opening (although I admit he did not play very accurately in the opening).
He is a lot stronger than me, and in a winning position, I blundered in time trouble.
I would be interested to here your thoughts and opinions - I know the game was far from perfect.
Also I am interested to here whether you consider the Berlin to refute the Ruy - perhaps we should all play the scotch instead.