Need help analyzing my last OTB loss

Hi,

this is my last OTB game played with black:


Some notes:
I played 20 ... Ba6, cause I wanted to offer a remis, and thought this is the only move, which does not change too much of the position. On the other hand, I thought that Ne7 looses to b4.

I saw that 22 ... f6 was a blunder, just after I played it ;) And after that it was completely lost, I just tried to play around a bit, maybe getting to a remis after some blunder of my opponent.

So I guess analyzing after that point is not needed so much.

I can perform an analysis with stockfish here, but I would like to hear some advice in words / plans / (mis)conceptions from some higher rated players.

Thanks a lot in advance !

"I saw that 22 ... f6 was a blunder, just after I played it ;) And after that it was completely lost, I just tried to play around a bit, maybe getting to a remis after some blunder of my opponent."

That pretty much sums things up. :)

@MrPushwood said in #2:
> "I saw that 22 ... f6 was a blunder, just after I played it ;) And after that it was completely lost, I just tried to play around a bit, maybe getting to a remis after some blunder of my opponent."
>
> That pretty much sums things up. :)

Ok, fair point :)
But it was +3 already according to stockfish, so there have been some misconceptions / wrong plans / ... before.
How do I get better from this analysis ? "calculate better, so you dont make a big blunder" for sure, but what else ?

I think a big part of your downfall was the gaping hole on d6. You never did anything to address it during the opening. And when you finally tried with 22...f6 this was a blunder.

" it was +3 already according to stockfish, so there have been some misconceptions / wrong plans "

Ask another 3500. We're just the peanut gallery. :)

@Katzenschinken said in #4:
> I think a big part of your downfall was the gaping hole on d6. You never did anything to address it during the opening. And when you finally tried with 22...f6 this was a blunder.
Ok, thx a lot.
I am gonna have a look at the game again with this in mind.

@brainwind The big thing that sticks out to me is your decision to play c5. Why did you play this?
It creates a hopelessly backward pawn on d6 which basically lost the game. Yes, there are a lot of other things going on, but that is the core weakness, and your opponent did a good job of playing against it, and leaving no no room to untangle.
Another thing. You had the worse position right out of the opening which makes me think that perhaps you don't quite understand how the opening is meant to be played.
Here are the purposes of the opening, in no particular order.
1. Mobilize your pieces and create a pawn structure that fits with your long term plan, while at the same time avoiding long term weaknesses. (the d pawn was a long term weakness)
2. Do your best to control the center and prevent your opponent from doing so. (Your opponent completely monopolized the center. You never succeeded in planting a pawn on the fifth rank until late in the game)
3. Give your opponent as many problems as possible, without overextending yourself, or hampering the doing of steps 1 and 2. (This one is secondary in importance, so its not worth commenting on too much, but your opponent seemed very happy the whole game to me).

Think the whole opening black side went wrong as from 2nd move...First you play the french defence (1.e4 e6) with the idea of pushing next d5...instead of that you played b6 which is non sense to me. Why differing the push to d5 when you can do it straight and fight for the center. Besides, i agree with ChessMathNerd, c5 looks not good for the reason he exposed. You got then a big hole in the center.

@ChessMathNerd
Thx for your reply.

I would say I have a glimpse of what is needed in the opening,
but to be honest, looking at this game I get why you think I dont understand the opening at all ;)

I played c5, in order to chip away some of the pawn wedge and "free" the center, but creating this backward pawn is probably not worth it. At least I should have tried to get rid of it with d6 at some point.

After your reply and as @Katzenschinken also mentioned the hole coming with the backward pawn I really think this was a big concern in this game.

Thx to both of you !

@dav_de_brux
Thx for your reply, but 1 ... e6, 2 ... b6 was intended and its not the french opening, but an opening system I got from an opening course of an IM and try to implement. But thanks for your notion of c5, which seems to be a big flaw in my game.