One of my best games

I just started playing chess very recently, and reached 1300 with decent speed. Suddenly my progress stopped, and I fell down to 1150 very quickly. I decided to grab some chess books and study for a week, and I feel like results are showing. Played 5 games since I came back, won 4 of them. The following is against the strongest opponent (1391). Any constructive criticism would be highly appreciated. 

Firstly, Congrats on winning!

3.Bc4 is not so good, better is d4, because that's why you played Nf3 in the first place.

3.Nd7 is terrible, you exploited it well but much better is Nf6!

5.g6 is random, Nb6 was better

6.0-0 is good but a better move would have been Bg5! Taking advantage to put pressure on the e-pawn

8.Nf3 was unneccesary, your knight's good there, don't move it until absolutely neccesary. Better is Nc3, good development

9.Bg5 is superb

14.Bb2 and you're far better off.

15.Bh6! is better, Rd1 is not neccesary, the other rook can go there later

16.b5 is a blunder, you were bound to win after that

18.Bf4 is better

19.Bh6? is a mistake, wastes a tempo

Nice tactic, but you could have gained a tempo with Bg7+! Kxg7 Rxd7+ Qxd7 Qxd7+

Hmm, two small details in an otherwise superbly played game:

First why did you retreat with your knight 8.Nf3? he was nicely placed in the center and I see no reason to retreat him from there.

Second, 9.Nc3 (I suppose mistakes allways come in pairs) The move itself is fine but why not take the gift on d6(9.Qxd6)? Often its not a good idea to go pawn grabbing in the opening but in this concrete situation you remain ahead in development, win an important central pawn and your queen ends up on a very good square, so why not?

Other than that I think you can pat yourself on the back, you played well over your rating in that game and the rest of the innacuracies Id say are more details than anything else.

P.S. the guy above me is much too quick to criticise good moves and doesnt give only good suggestions himself, my suggestion to him is to look over the game a bit more slowly again and to you to ignore what he just wrote.

Nicely done

@FMOneLastBreath-

Could you explain? For example, Bc4 is a mistake right?

I am glad to be corrected if wrong, but please explain it.

Agreed, Ng5 is the best, mate in 1

Hold on though, 9.Qxd6 is a free pawn, right?

If you read my first post where that was one of two real mistakes I mentioned, than yes, it is.

Thanks for all of the responses, it's always inspiring to have strong players commenting your games! I did 8.Nf3, thinking that he might would do e5 anytime soon and force my knight to move anyway. I thought that moving my knight would make him cast away the idea of e5, thus not allowing him to create a stronger pawn center. On second thought, I believe that e5 is very unlikely as he already did e6, and my move is made useless. As for 9.Nc3, that was simply a dubious move. As OneLastBreath said, I should've just captured that pawn. 

Nice game!  22.Rxd6 is very strong (and set up that 23.Rxd7!) but unless I'm mistaken even stronger was 22.Qc7 which left black looking at an unavoidable mate in 3. 

Id like to try to highlight the good and the bad in your thinking process.

To start with the good, I highly approve of how you asked yourself what your oponent was intending and then based your play off of that. Former world champion Anatoli Karpov made a living with this kind of thinking and very often missed winning moves, because he was so focused on preventing and preempting what his oponent wanted to do. The fact that you just recently started playing, but already have such a thinking process, shows in my opinion that you definitely are talented and with a little time and effort will certainly reach a certain level.

There are two things I would like to criticise however, though Im certain both are simply do to a lack of experience. The first is that e5 would not be a good idea for black in the first place. It would block out his Bishop g7 and weaken the d5 square. However there are indeed sicilian variations where this is a central idea, the difficulty is getting a good feeling for when it is good and when not. Im afraid experience is the only medecine here.

My other critic is what square you moved your knight to. F3 is a healthy square and in general ok, but its important to look at all options. Here 8.Nb5! would have been a killer, winning the d6 pawn with check in your next move with a crushing advantage. Another strong option that Im mentioning more for the idea than the objective strength is the surprising 8.Bxe6!? fxe6 9.Nxe6. This sacrifice is very common in the sicilian under different circumstances and indeed even here white should have a strong attack and excellent compensation, take note of the idea.

Thanks for both the positive response and the very constructive criticism. The same goes to all others who have helped me out in this thread.

It is a fact that I do lack a lot of experience, as I just started playing "seriously" (on chess.com and other chess-sites) a couple of weeks ago, even though I've known the basic rules of chess since I was 8. During the years 8-16 I played less than 10 games. (I just turned 17.) I learned about castling and en passant a couple of months ago, but as Kasparov once said: "Thanks to the internet, a fifteen-year old boy in his bedroom may learn more about chess in a year than Bobby Fischer learned throughout his entire life."

Going a bit off-topic; based on the bad/dubious moves done in this game, which books would you recommend me? 

@one last breath

8.Bxe6! is a nice move. Can black even play 8...fxe6 and survive? -- after 9.Nxe6 white threatens 10.Nxg7+ or 10.Nxd8 or 10.Nc7+ and there's also e5! lurking with sadistic discovery threats. As black I think I'd 'refuse' the bishop with 8...Bxd4 9.Qxd4 and White "only" has a full pawn.

8.Nb5 looks as strong and simpler, but I think Bxe6 has more intimidation factor. As Black, after Nb5 I'd think: "oh crap how'd I miss that? I screwed up." After Bxe6 I'd think: "oh crap, this guy's good. I'm screwed!" ;)

@Social: Its hard to say what books to suggest. A classic most tend to read sooner or later is Nimzowitsch's "My System" where he explains classical positional chess. It would be absolutely incorrect of me not to recommend it, though to be honest Im not overly fond of the book, it should be a worthwhile read.

My personal favorite, my chess bible so to speak, is John Watson's "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy" which is an excellent book but Im afraid geared toward a much more advanced audience then you are at the moment. Read this after you feel you've mastered all the "classical rules". It opened new horizons for me and certainly others as well. I never actually read any other of his books, but from what Ive heard he has some excellent books geared towards a begginers level audience.

My recommendation for opening theory is Lars Schandorff. His books (I have his Caro-Kann and Queens gambit books) are very good in that the recommendations are solid but not too theoretical and he explains the variations in a way that they remain good for a very wide audience from beginner to well... Id say better than me. The downside is that he hasnt written many other books Im aware of so possibly they wont fit in your repertoire.

Finally I can recommend Boris Avrukhs books, but again, Im afraid its geared to a very advanced audience, Im afraid even more advanced than Watsons book I mentioned earlier. The advantage is his work is very thorough, so if he does cover an opening you play or are intending to play (a Grünfeld book is coming out or already out iirc) get it, because it will answer any question on more specific lines you are missing out on.

It's hard to say at what level to start reading books though, nor is it clear that everyone profits equally from them. My own history with them is fairly unusual as my dad was a 2200+ player back in the day, so I started with the very advanced and on average about 30 year old (mostly opening-)books from the library he accumulated over the years visiting a cousin of his in East-Germany, but I never actually read the basics. My recommendation would be to try to read the books "blind" (by which I mean without a board) if possible, though that doesnt work for everyone, its very effective training if you practice it.

@JG: Yes, it looks like a lot of fun, but in general if you have two strong lines its usually a good idea to follow the "KISS" rule-> Keep It Simple Stupid, because in the end, we are all big enough idiots to screw up a complicated winning position.

@Onelastbreath -- I assure you in actual play I prefer mediocre simple lines over complicated good ones -- because being a faint-hearted pessimist, my thinking typically is: if I'm going to lose, I want to at least see it coming!! 

Regarding advanced-beginner/intermediate books. I never hear Artur Yusupov's books recommended... (in fact someone recently asked me for a book rec and Yusupov's books completely slipped my mind). And I don't know why. I think they do an excellent job teaching and are very practical and fun. They just drill you on selected topics, in a "little of this- little of that" format so that you don't get bored.    The only downside is that the books are a bit pricey considering the size. Yusupov was world #3 behind Kasparov and Karpov -- ! I worked thru boost your chess level 1 and it wasn't all that easy by the way. I wouldn't reccommend this to someone below say 1300 US chess

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/

I would learn the ruy lopez from main line, it is a good opening

I would suggest the Arkhangelsk variation

e4 e5 nf3 nc6 bb5 a6 ba4 nf6 0-0 b5 bb3 bb7

@JG: omg, I can't believe I didn't recommend Jussupow before! Admittedly I haven't read many of his books but he trains the swiss national youth team and used to train me directly via skype/chessbase, so I know him quite well. Artur's positional understanding is amazing and I'd say is still well over 2700 even nowadays, not that I could judge that, but that's my impression. In general he has an excellent talent for being able to teach people of all levels and I don't think you can go wrong buying his books. Also, he's a really nice guy with an excellent sense of humor, so get your books autographed if you see him at a tournament ^^

Thanks for all of the recommendations, going to the library ASAP!

EDIT: Haha, losing it again. Under 1200. Noticing that going back to normal school and kickboxing 7 times a week is taking its toll.