Lessons Learned - Part 3

Be mindful about pawn breaks. Always check if the last moves enables any new pawn pushes!

Uff. Here i played a 30 minutes game but I was not fully concentrated (I am tired and its very very hot outside). I am playing very fast (because my opponent also does it) and here I only saw that Be6 is perfect after his Nc2. Because now the knight cannot take back the bishop on b3 and will also not threaten my black bishop anymore.

But, obviously, the move Nc2 had another idea that I missed: playing d4 and trapping my bishop. I saw that before d4 was not possible, but here I forgot to check what new ideas the knight move allows for.

Also, I should have a bit more respected the lack of movement freedom that my dark-squared bishop enjoys, maybe then i would have looked at d4 closer.

Thankfully, my opponent is a bullet playing maniac and while he sees my trapped bishop, he still manages to loose the tactic and later the game:

1. Nc2 Be6?? 2. d4! exd4 3. Bxe6?? (why?? simply cxd4 wins the bishop) d3! and suddenly I am fine.

Always check what happens if the piece you just moved gets kicked by a pawn.

Here, an instructive mistake. Not loosing, but just loosing a clean tempo.
In this position, the core thing is the e5 push. Currently there are 4 defenders on e5 and only 3 attackers. My dark-squared bishop has not moved, so it's clearly his turn to enter the fight.
I played Bc5 for the simple reason that I am going to remove the defender and then push the e pawn. But then my opponent responds correctly with b6, and suddenly I'm reconsider. If I take the bishop, I give free development to the enemy knight, which is kindof stuck where it currently sits. So I accept my mistake and go back to d4, where the bishop basically does the same thing, instead of removing a defender, it adds an attacker.

Looking back, it would have been much better to play Bd4 directly, especially knowing that black wants to push b6 and maybe c5 anyway (to control my annoying knights), so I am not even forcing an uncomfortable move for him.

Do not try to force a queen trade in a winning endgame. And never forget about backrank mate.

Uff.. that hurts. After a long and hard game, I finally manage to work my way to an endgame with 2 pawns up. Which I give away literally the next move.

1 minute on the clock, my brain says: "You're in a winning endgame. Trade off the queens fast and you'll be fine!". I listen to it and play the sensible move Qd3, blocking blacks queens vision and threatening Qxh7+ after the queen moves away.
But. My king. He is going to get backranked. Sad life..
1. ..Qxd3! 2. Rxd3 Re1+! ... mate

I think this situation can be generalized to a concept I saw in a video lately. It's not always best to trade the queens off in a winning endgame, if your queen is active and the enemy king is open, you might as well harass him and put your opponent under pressure. This was exactly the case for, the black king is very loose, for example Qa4+ at least gobbles a pawn.
Of course here it might be wise to also just play a3 to prevent any nasty backrank tricks.

I should try to see what counterplay my opponent has, what are his last tricks, and shut them down with highest priority.