A Scandinavian Friday the 13th game.

I was very happy with this OTB game I played today at our chess club because all my recent study of proper unit placement in the Scandinavian Defense paid off nicely, even though I did fumble a little along the way. This is the kind of game I like and that I strive to play: strong opening moves, leading to a strong middlegame without having let the advantage slip along the way, and finally ending with a decisive tactical finish. Comments welcome, especially for moves that either player overlooked.

35.Qf8# you would have failed the tactics puzzle. xD

15.Rhe1 is not necessary. The immediate 15.f5 is lethal.

Also after ....b5 16.f5 might be strong.

Also 23.exd6 and f5 xD

Wow, I can't believe I missed that one after going through this game so many times. Thanks: good catch!

It's interesting to analyze why I missed that move, in general: (1) I wasn't familiar with that mating position; (2) The social setting at the time. This was an untimed game that lasted about an hour, total. My opponent was disgusted over losing, and was making each of those last moves almost immediately while I took several times longer because I was writing the moves down, so I didn't want to delay the game anymore. So many people on this site complain that players never play all the way until mate, so I was enjoying a golden opportunity to actually end with a mate, so I wasn't about to slow the game even longer by looking for an optimal move. I had one winning combo in my head so I played it out, which was good enough. If it had been a tournament game where I didn't have social pressure or time pressure I would have gone ahead and looked for faster mates, starting a few moves earlier, in fact. All this demonstrates the difference between chess puzzles and real-world games:

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(p. 43)
   The safest way to take advantage of your overall advantage in strength
is to keep it simple. You may take rather longer to win than if you go for
complications, but you are more certain to win in the end. The biggest
difference between a Master and a club player is in positional
understanding. This pays off most clearly in simple positions, where the
Master knows exactly what to do, and finds it easy to punish the positional
errors of his opponent. This almost certainly applies to you too when you
play someone distinctly weaker than yourself. Remember that the Tiger is
not interested in playing brilliant combinations or original manoeuvres for
their own sake--he just wants to make sure he wins.

(p. 102)
   (3) Don't be a perfectionist

   In the past, many leading grandmasters were so fascinated by chess that
they couldn't resist the challenge of finding the very best move in a
position, even if this meant spending up to an hour on a single move.
Consequently they often ended up having to make their last 10 or 15
moves in less than a minute. This perfectionism is all very well in analysis
or in correspondence chess, but it's a handicap in over-the-bar play. It
seems to me that players such as Geller, Bronstein, Andersson, and
Smejkal achieved good results in spite of being perfectionists, not because
of it. Their love of the game explained why they were perfectionists as
well as why they were good players, but maybe they would have been
even better players if they had been content to play reasonable moves
instead of always striving for the best move. Karpov and Larsen, two of the
most successful tournament players in the world, were known to be
(p. 103)
content with preserving their position by playing adequate moves, in order
to conserve their time and wait for their opponent to make a mistake.

Webb, Simon. 2005. Chess for Tigers. London: Batsford.