I Would Appreciate Help • page 3/3 • General Chess Discussion • lichess.org

I'll look over this game against Stockfish 4.

https://lichess.org/52buQvQ6#0

e3 is trapping your dark bishop, allowing white to play Nh4 and force a trade. Not necessarily bad if you move back to g3 and use the trade to open your rook up, but I prefer h3 first to give the bishop a place to hide. You want to check to make sure your pieces have safe squares they can move to, and safe squares from those safe squares.
Nbd2 is a passive, cramping move. Your knight is not attacking anything, and now your queen is stuck behind it. Especially as white, you want the more aggressive c3 square, and you usually want to push the c pawn to c4 first; the more of your own pieces you block, the sooner the opponent can run you out of good moves and force you to play bad ones.
Qe2 is loading a gun that's aimed at nothing, and the cost is losing the c pawn's only defender and blocking the light bishop behind your queen. You only want the queen in front of a bishop when you're aimed at the king; otherwise she's more valuable than whatever she's attacking. Best would either be Bd3, getting rid of white's strong light bishop, or a3, stopping the knight from joining the attack against the c pawn and threatening a king fork.
Nxc6 is double-edged; it removes black's fairly dangerous knight and breaks black's pawns up a bit, but it lets the a rook get into the game instead, and you're already weak on queenside.
Be5 is a good move; black's knight has trouble moving now with the rook behind it, and it has to move to let a pawn attack the bishop. These are the kind of situations you want to create; trapping your opponent's pieces where they're blocking up other pieces, and keeping them there as long as you can.
g4 is horribly losing; it has one defender, the queen, against three attackers, two of which can immediately retreat again, one of which can immediately attack the queen and force you to save her. There was no reason to move that pawn that turn, and good reason not to.
f3 is creating a dark-square weakness for your king. Black has a lot of time to move their pieces out of the way until their queen or dark bishop can get to h4, and you don't have a good way to protect yourself. The short-term threat against yoru queen is replaced with a long-term threat against your king. Much better to just move the queen, she shouldn't be there to begin with.
O-O. As a general rule, you should never ever castle into broken pawns. The benefit of castling is getting your king protected; broken pawns don't protect him, they expose him. An exposed king can lose you the game by itself. If you've broken your pawns, you're almost always better off not castling at all.
fxg4. Black is attacking your b pawn, you should have defended it. And your pawn was on f3 to stop the bishop from staying of g4, which it immediately returns to now to threaten your queen again.
Rad1 is too late, there's too many attackers. Your best chance is a counterattack. Press the few advantages you still have; your f rook is aimed close to black's king, and that king is also fairly exposed on the light squares from queenside. So capture the light bishop to weaken those light squares further, then capture the knight to weaken them again, then rush your queen to a6 and leave your knight to die, to get in some harassing checks against black's king and try for a repetition or a perpetual check. An exposed king can draw or lose the game by itself, so especially when you're behind you should be trying to pry him open.

I'll look over this game against Stockfish 4. https://lichess.org/52buQvQ6#0 4. e3 is trapping your dark bishop, allowing white to play Nh4 and force a trade. Not necessarily bad if you move back to g3 and use the trade to open your rook up, but I prefer h3 first to give the bishop a place to hide. You want to check to make sure your pieces have safe squares they can move to, and safe squares from those safe squares. 5. Nbd2 is a passive, cramping move. Your knight is not attacking anything, and now your queen is stuck behind it. Especially as white, you want the more aggressive c3 square, and you usually want to push the c pawn to c4 first; the more of your own pieces you block, the sooner the opponent can run you out of good moves and force you to play bad ones. 6. Qe2 is loading a gun that's aimed at nothing, and the cost is losing the c pawn's only defender and blocking the light bishop behind your queen. You only want the queen in front of a bishop when you're aimed at the king; otherwise she's more valuable than whatever she's attacking. Best would either be Bd3, getting rid of white's strong light bishop, or a3, stopping the knight from joining the attack against the c pawn and threatening a king fork. 9. Nxc6 is double-edged; it removes black's fairly dangerous knight and breaks black's pawns up a bit, but it lets the a rook get into the game instead, and you're already weak on queenside. 10. Be5 is a good move; black's knight has trouble moving now with the rook behind it, and it has to move to let a pawn attack the bishop. These are the kind of situations you want to create; trapping your opponent's pieces where they're blocking up other pieces, and keeping them there as long as you can. 11. g4 is horribly losing; it has one defender, the queen, against three attackers, two of which can immediately retreat again, one of which can immediately attack the queen and force you to save her. There was no reason to move that pawn that turn, and good reason not to. 12. f3 is creating a dark-square weakness for your king. Black has a lot of time to move their pieces out of the way until their queen or dark bishop can get to h4, and you don't have a good way to protect yourself. The short-term threat against yoru queen is replaced with a long-term threat against your king. Much better to just move the queen, she shouldn't be there to begin with. 14. O-O. As a general rule, you should never ever castle into broken pawns. The benefit of castling is getting your king protected; broken pawns don't protect him, they expose him. An exposed king can lose you the game by itself. If you've broken your pawns, you're almost always better off not castling at all. 15. fxg4. Black is attacking your b pawn, you should have defended it. And your pawn was on f3 to stop the bishop from staying of g4, which it immediately returns to now to threaten your queen again. 17. Rad1 is too late, there's too many attackers. Your best chance is a counterattack. Press the few advantages you still have; your f rook is aimed close to black's king, and that king is also fairly exposed on the light squares from queenside. So capture the light bishop to weaken those light squares further, then capture the knight to weaken them again, then rush your queen to a6 and leave your knight to die, to get in some harassing checks against black's king and try for a repetition or a perpetual check. An exposed king can draw or lose the game by itself, so especially when you're behind you should be trying to pry him open.