What now?

Were there any opening mistakes on my part?

What plan could i have initiated once i had adequate control of the center?

Also i guess im not that good of an attacker any tips general ones and even specific ones that pertain to this game?

thank you for any advice you can provide

8.Be3 was perfectly fine. 8.Nc3 would have been better. 8.e5!? is also interesting. One thing you should really look at is the idea Nb1->Nc3->Nd4. Did you notice the fork?

did u mean Nd5? ya i noticed it later but he got a pawn to cover the sqaure before i got the chance.

7. Bxc6 dxc6

8. e5 Bxe5

9. Nxe5

and if 9. ... Qxe5 then 10. Re1 pins the queen to the king.

 Yes, Nd5. The wife was distracting me...

lol nice

tenna thats a good variation didnt think about that but maybe

9...dxc3

10.Nxc3

The nore I look at this the more I see that 8.Nc3 wins.

in ur variation i think black would go

9...a6 then you have to pull the bishop to d3 where its blocked by ur pawns but i think u could push the  e-pawn because of the discovered attack on the queen but i feel as if white would be overextended i mean he probably still has the advantage though because of his space in center, control of center and development

well i have to go to bed now getting kinda late here

I think 8.e5 followed by Nc3 would have been very strong in the opening. (*edit* and the tactics tenna spotted earlier are stronger yet) I think you had a giant positional advantage at that point. However, as the game demonstrates, postional advantages are meaningless when the basics of holding onto material from one move to the next are ignored either thru carelessness or time pressure.

You had a crushing advantage when you went up two pieces. At that point you needed to say, "ok, this game is won I've just got to eliminate his counterplay."

You needed to look at his position and say... "his two bishops are aimed at my kingside I absolutely must interfere with those bishops and exchange exchange exchange."

I think you knew all this, but you had a flaw in your thinking about how to create exchanges. You do not get exchanges by "offering" them and hoping your opponent is dumb enough to take them. As you saw, he wasn't. You do not generally get exchanges by defending. You get exchanges by attacking something of value and giving your opponent a choice -- do I move away/defend, or do I get exchanged. If what you've attacked is immobile, his choices are to lose it, or exchange.  Right when you needed to increase pressure, you sat back and became rather passive.

Finally, allowing that bishop of his to control the g2 square in front of your King was begging for trouble. You spaced out and missed his mate threat in time trouble...ok... but it's never good to let an enemy bishop hang out on h3 in front of your king.

However, probably your biggest mistake was clock management. Time pressure nullifies everything, I mean it's hard to make decent moves under time pressure and you say you were getting into time trouble by move 15! Up two pieces and you still lost. That's blitz for you.

FWIW I think those moves early on that you call "strengthening the center" are actually rather passive. When you have an advantage you must use it or it slips away.  Here's an example from just a bit later in the game...

You played 22.Rd1?!  A move which looks like it's "strengthening the center" ... It's a fine fine good idea to activate a rook like that and pull it to a central file... if you don't have anything better, if you don't have urgent concerns elsewhere. Playing more actively you could have (and IMO should have) nipped his attack in the bud. You take away his last remaining aggressively posted weapons (The B's and Q) and you have an easy game.

So, instead of 22.Rd1 --  22.Ne5 forking white Bishop and Q (you end up exchanging N for B), followed by Bf4 taking away that dangerous diagonal from his bishop (or he exchanges) and also opening up the e file for your rook... His attack is neutered.

 9... a6 would not bother the bishop at all. When you see a threat that stops your move look past it at least one move to see if the threat is real!

u changed the scenario there u forgot the d5 push so nd5 was not avaliable there

You said after 3....Bd6 you said you didn't see any way to take advantage. IMO it's too early too worry about getting any real advantage. You played a good move, but 4. d4 or Nc3 would've been ok also. When someone plays outside of book openings (whether they're trying to psych you out or just lack of opening knowledge) I usually stick to just trying to develope all my pieces to (hopefully) good squares.

ya same i try to stick to developing too but, sometimes nonbook moves have a specific weakeness to them that u can immediatley take advantage of even though it was pretty early in the game i looked but found none so i just chose to castle which is standard in the ruy

d4 i feel as if it threw way the center and exchanged knight after Nd4 which would kinda ruin my bishop move and make the postion less advantagous for me

also anyone who can help me: during the game i was trying to strengthen my center which wasnt hard b/c my opponent wasnt really attacking it. I thought it was a good plan and i knew doing so restricts your opponents pieces, but im curious how do u follow up the plan once your have an adequetly strong center?

 I assume this was directed to me since it followed my post. My comment was to demonstrate that 8.Nc3 wins out right because Black will find it too hard to defend the c7 point. This is due to the discoordination of his pieces on the dark squares near his king.

I forgot to give props to Tenna for finding that other winning line. My musings on Nc3 are pointless because that just wins out right.

Well what i did notice were:

3. ...  Bd6  Putting your bishop before your own paws isn't a good idea, you are not helping your own development.

4 ... h6?  This move doesn't do anything(it tries to stop Ng5?) and just cost you a tempo.

5. .. Qf6?  Understandable move, but if you look now to the game you see your Knight on g8 and your bishop on c8 blocked in. You can play Ne7 ofcourse but imo the bishop should be developed on f6 imo.

6. ... exd4?  I don't think it is the right thing to do because you totally give up the center now. Keep the tention of the pawn structure intact until you can gain some advantage.

So far white is doing fine he is quickly developing his pieces...

14. ... Qg6(makes room for the night? or threatens Bh3?) If you look at the game you see white is totally developped and your side needs a lot of work. The bishop on c8 still isn't active, the night is kinda weird placed at b7 and your night was locked in for a while. To make things even worse is your king is not in safety. If i would play white i directly would open the center with e5(attack the Queen also and trying to open the center) and attack the weak black king asap

My advice is to try develop all your pieces faster and make sure you castle on time with your king. If you do this imo you will get better results in the future i think.

Last thing 15. a3 ??? (White is ready to open/attack and he plays passivly a3 ;))

anyway my two cents

also anyone who can help me: during the game i was trying to strengthen my center which wasnt hard b/c my opponent wasnt really attacking it. I thought it was a good plan and i knew doing so restricts your opponents pieces, but im curious how do u follow up the plan once your have an adequetly strong center?

It's hard to answer this without a game to refer to... we can't refer to the game you've posted because You had that game won. You were up tons of material. You just blundered a mate in 1.  

IMHO your "strong center" reinforcing was tempo wasting stuff that gave your opponent time he desperately needed.

The general plan when you have the center is to use the superior mobility and space owning the center generally confers to launch an attack on either flank. Or even to attack one side, then the other. This is tragically general advice that IMHO is about as useful as saying, "find the best move..." gee, duh, thanks... -- equally general advice, but far more valuable is to say: the plan you want is the plan the specifics of the position call for.

You already had a won game and your plan was the elementary one of exchange to eliminate his counterplay and consolidate your crushing advantage.

It appeared you did not know how to do this.

When short of time your basic idea in this game seemed to be try and exchange off the queen to nullify blacks queen and bishop play. If you study the white side of the spanish against the marshall attack, this might help with ideas to defend against blacks h3 bishop.

Nice game.

at first I only looked up to 16.e5. Whatever grievous errors were made or not made later, this should be an easy win for white afterwards.

The first post is up to 16.e5:

Not many things to say:

yeah, as mentioned, 8.Nc3 is easily winning, but Be3, as played by you, should be winning all the same. Perhaps a bit more slowly,but it keeps your edge in development, and e5 is actually a serious positional threat after 8.Be3 as well.

One funny thing is that e5 is so good,  that you could have actually played 9.e5 immediately and only then retreated the bishop (perhaps to d3, that would give black lots of headaches even if he castles. iron grip on center, d5 coming soon. poor black). Still, your 9.Ba4 should win too.

you keep refusing the e5 break all the time. That was a clear problem, and I don't understand why? I mean, when you have a huge advantage in both development and center, the first idea (sometimes the only winning idea) is to use central breaks to attack. You don't HAVE to have an instant check  with a rook on e1 waiting when you're just that much further ahead.

However, you seem to stay in a winning position up  until the weird 15.a3 move. of course, your advantage is SOOO big it should still be very good for you, but it leaves 15...Bh3 as a means to mess things up a bit. (16.g3 Qh5. you're still doing great, but no longer 100% easily winning).

In general, when you have a clear lead in development, you should look for ways to open up the position to your advantage or the advantage may vanish. Even if it doesn't lead to a knockout.

For example, Bd6 and h6 were two horrible moves by your opponent, and you already have quite a bit of lead. 5.d4 should ensure a very nice position.

5.c3, gives black time for Nf6 and he can next castle, being in an awkward position, but one which is not that easily won (or not at all) for you.

5.d4 uses the fact that black can't take with the knight. the presence of the queen there, threatening g7 at the end of the line will force major concessions on black's part.

after strange moves such as ...Qf6 your opponent stays clearly lost and after  16.e5, you should be easily winning.

now for the part after the e5 break:

as to your comment, on 20.Bxa6 (you say "Be4 was probably better"), I have to say, depends on your definition of better..... both moves should win with no real effort.

There is no danger at all after Bxa6 either. Now after ...Bh3 you can just g3 and if Qh5 than Qe2. you're too far ahead on material to worry about a piece not in the defense. black can't produce enough attacking pieces.

21.exd6 is STILL totally winning, don't get me wrong, but now you're allowing black to bring more attacking pieces towards your kingside. still easily winning, but after that, you just need to pay a bit of attention. Still of course, no question as to who's winning.

26. d5 well...you SEEM to lose a lot here. of course, in reality, all the good moves in the world can be spoiled by one mistake. Thing is, I think you were reacting to the shock afterwards... You're still winning after this. Just gotta snap back into it.

30.Qe5 - yeah...another error, but, just goes to show how bad black's position was, you're STILL easily winning.

Didn't understand the "??" on d6. Still winning. didn't create more complications. just a mistake, but definitely not a big one, if you just return to paying attention.

so you were winning ALL the way to the final move.

There, something like 33.Be4, Q moves and Bg2 just stops black's attack cold.

Nice game. many slow moves, you were still winning most of the time.

few bad moves.

One huge miss:(

happens to the best of us. Keep it up