Trying to work on my game, looking for help online.

LOL Looked through your two games here on chess.com You are an aggressive player with a habit to blunder or miss simple tactics. Solve puzzles from your tactical book again. What is a title?

I'm certainly not as strong as 1600+USCF, but I think I'm now much stronger than my current 1201. Here's an inexpensive suggestion to help pull yourself up by your own boostraps. Keep a "Chess Log." Write down where you are with your game, where you believe your strengths and weaknesses are, your plans, what you want to improve--just anything really. Also, when you work on any chess puzzle, do the same thing. Capture your thinking process. List what you think, try to solve it on your own, then look up the answer and compare, then write down what you learn. Analyze your own games, and find time to analyze Master Games as well.

Later, review your logs and the problems you've worked on, and do it regularly. Pick a day to do this, or do it every day, whatever suits you. You may discover that you are moving forward, you just don't realize it, or that you're simply not applying what you learn consistently (my problem). In this way you are your own coach. It may be slower than having another pair of eyes objectively critique what you're doing, but it doesn't cost anything but your time, and in the final analysis, you have to learn this on your own anyway.

What tactics did I miss specifically ZaidejasChEgis? I haven't had a chance to annotate my games yet but my first game I think I erred when I played the tactic on d4. This didn't give me any advantage but a material imbalance and my opponent got wide open diagonals for his bishop pair. Then I was completely outplayed in the endgame, I guess thinking it was a draw and waiting for your opponent to "realize" that too isn't smart! He played a good endgame in my opinion. Lesson worthy!

The second was much less polished and my opponent gave me back a pawn easily on d5 from the trades and then his d4 pawn was weak. After Qb3? His position was falling apart but he missed my cheapo with Rb4 and took it which allowed the mate on h2. He had to play Bf5+ when Kb8 allows his queen to come cover the h2 square and away from my rook attack on b4. That allows Rxb2 though so I would have been comfortably in control of the game.

But I am curious what simple tactics I missed in the games, can you show me when you get a chance?

That's a good suggestion OldChessDog! As for openings... I'm not very interested in them. I was told many times by others that I shouldn't focus on openings until I was 1800 USCF and that I should instead try various set ups, make sure to develop my pieces quickly and learn how to find good squares for my pieces in opening play. Then later I can review my "history" and decide what positions I like best or suit my preferred game plans (honestly love Morphy, Tal, Alehkine, Kasparov- attacking chess so far) and pick openings accordingly. It makes sense to me so I've been a firm believer in it ever since. In that phase of the game I am a novice with terminology and names, I just see a opening by a master game and if it looks interesting, try it. Especially online at ItsYourTurn.com, when I have a whole day to move if I need to mess around with possible move orders or try and figure out what my game plan should be.

I'll try to analyze your game. But be patient, I need time to prepare for my tomorrow's game too :)

Maybe Understanding Chess Endgames and Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy will help you?  If you have abunch of weaknesses then endgame ones are what you want to shore up first.  Capablanca and the Soviet School both recommended endgame study. This helps you practice with pieces in their pure form against either the same or other pieces (e.g., a pure queen and pawns vs. two rooks and pawns or even rook and bishop battle.  Generally the rooks are better [rook and bishop is equal to a queen but harder to manage in practice since you're managing two pieces] but sometimes the queen wins like having more advanced passed pawns or whatever)

Don't forget to round out your master study with some Steinitz, Lasker,Rubinstein (as much as I like Lasker I can't help but think of Rubinstein as the unofficial world champ due to his outstanding performance during the old 10s), and Capablanca.

No worries nm ZaidejasChEgis, your stuff is priority. I'm just curious.

Thegreatoogieboogie, thanks. I've been doing that this year in an effort to patch up my knowledge base. For example in Silman's endgame book I usually know or understand his more advanced stuff but find myself struggling on some of his basic material. Knowledge gaps, meh.

I agree, I find Morphy games far easier to understand and try in my games than Kasparov's or Tal's. Probably because Morphy was dealing with players more in line with amateurs games, lack of developments, exposed kings, ect. Anyway, I will play some faster timed games so you get a larger sample of games NM ZaidejasChEgis. May the odds be in your favor tomorrow!

NM ZaidejasChEgis, how did your game go? I've been diving into the Chess Mentor courses here, awesome feature! I have done 160 lessons so far. Also playing some games with a very helpful and strong player, he has been enlightening and very challenging.