cuendillar wrote: I can't say I'm overly impressed with either side.
I didn't make this post to impress anyone, I played really badly, and if he'd made fewer mistakes it would've been a crushing victory. I posted it because the game took an unexpected turn of events. it was purely for entertainment, not to show of any of my, sadly lacking, skill 
Wow 24... Kd7 what a move. After something sane like 24...0.0, white is getting butchered down big lumps of material, with no counterplay.
It is good that you are trying to be objective though, because you can learn from your mistakes that way.
Bye John S
The best thing to do is in the beginning...see where you began to mess up...study a good line against the Philidor. Many people will open the board with d4 immediately...maybe you should study some of those lines.
Hello,
BirdBrain gives one good line for white. The other main possibilty which is autually the trendy one for black is 3...pxp. Then a decent line for white is Morphy's 4.Qxp
with the idea of 4...Nc6 5.Bb5 with a good line for white of the Ruy Lopez. Black has a few tricks like playing Nf6, Be7,0.0 before Nc6 but meanwhile white can play Bf4, followed by 0.0.0. Black is aiming to counter-attack e4, like Nimzowitch showed in his my system book. However, white has more space, and should keep a typical edge.
Bye John S
Like the title says.. I played completely crap in the beginning, suffering massive losses. But lack of focus from my opponent in the end-game enabled me to crawl back into the game and eventually force a victory