12. Bxg7 white wins a pawn and your king has no safe place to go. Looks bad for black.
The position at 17. Rh5 looks like white is about to throttle black's king. In fact, after 17. ... g6 white can play 18. Rxh7! Or 18. Qg4 pinning the pawn. In fact, the pawn is not even threatening the rook since if white played gxh5, Qg4+ will be mate.
25. Be4 for white wins material
33. Qxg6+ Kf8 34. Re8#
Interesting. I think 34 Be7 looks strong for white, as black will probably lose the queen. The result is still in question after Qxe7 Rxe7 Rxe7 (Kxe7?? Qh7+!), but white should have an advantage. White might have also rushed his attack and blundered due to possible back rank threats.
Loomis,
Thanks for the analysis. Guess I got pretty lucky avoiding 12. Bxg7 and 33. Qxg6+. I still have much room for improvement!
I just went through your game. Congrats on the win. He did a mistake at 33. Re8+. Instead he could have done Qh8+ then you have only one option Kf7. then Qg7#check mate.
Although I learned the rules of chess when I was young, I only became interested in learning how to (really) play in Nov 2010 after I read a Kasparov article in the NYT. I'm fairly satisfied with my progress so far, and this game represents my best win in correspondence chess. Besides the obvious blunder of my opponent on move 34, I think this is a pretty interesting game and serves to illustrate the necessity of defense. Cheers!