proustiskeen wrote on 08/07/13 at 22:09:16:
Tough game; it looks like you ran into a pretty decent "hacker." Those guys can be difficult to play against, even if they don't always play completely sound moves. Keeping a clear head and not panicking is very important, as is the possibility of counter-attack. I've noticed that lots of these guys can't handle facing a counter attack.
Anyway in the pure chess realm, I'd question your decision to play 9...cxd4, which I'd probably give a '?' to. The computer doesn't immediately see it as a mistake, but after this all of White's pieces become active and your game goes downhill quickly. Especially after he's played 9.Re1, the last thing you want to do is remove his pawn from the e3-square.
My instincts strongly suggest 9...dxc4 10.Bxc4 Qc7, with play somewhat reminiscent of the old 10...Qc7 lines in the Nimzo (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O Nc6 8. a3 Bxc3 9. bxc3 dxc4 10. Bxc4 Qc7). ...Rd8 is coming with pressure on the d4-pawn, with possibly ...e6-e5 to follow (or else just ...b7-b6 and ...Bb7). Black looks better to me.
In very broad terms, for most of a chess game your goals are generally to increase the activity of your own pieces and to limit the activity of your opponent's pieces. All other niceties like pawn structure, development, seizing space, blah blah really boil down to getting good coordination/activity for yourself and taking it away from your opponent. In that sense, I think that your strategic mistake that began to make the game difficult for you came on move 9. Taking on d4 looks like a normal, harmless move, but it's these 'little' decisions that dictate the course of the rest of the game, who gets the initiative, etc.
You played some interesting chess and I think that you can learn a lot from your games and the comments here. I hope again that I wasn't too harsh on you earlier and that you find some of my comments useful. I've sincerely tried to help!
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