Position In the Ruy Lopez

I recently played a game which went like this. I won the game due to my opponent walking into an inferior bishop vs knight (I had the knight) endgame. But I believe that the correct result of the game should have been a draw.

Does this look drawish to you? My opponent played white and I had never seen this premature capture. It looks to me like the game should be a dead draw here.

I would say white has a slight advantage in the final postion, but I don't know if it's enough to win. Normally as black if you want to play Na5 and c5 you should play 9....Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 to keep the e5 pawn protected, and if you like 9....Bb7 I think the correct continuation is 10. d4 Re8.

Re8 is the bookline. I've never been crazy about it though.

I would rate the position about even. At first it looks as if White is better since the advanced black pawns could be vulnarable. But actually Black has a freer play fo his pieces. So a slight plus for Black.

Correct result is draw is probably true but doesn't matter much IMO -- amateur players just don't have the endgame technique to worry about drawish this or that. Pawn endings don't play themselves! You won this game and it proves my point.  

True enough. I was just wondering as to why I had never encountered it before (I play that sort of incorrect line as black every time I face the Ruy).

Sorry what is it that is incorrect. I'm no expert on this (or any!) opening but I've been trying to learn Ruy Lopez my whole chess life... what is the error... also looking at the last position in the diagram. It does look even, but if I had to give an advantage I think it's to Black. What plusses does White have there?

Well there's no error. It's just not the normal move order. And it's not the real zaitsev continuation, which, as pointed out, is Re8.

I dunno, this is a symetrical pawn structure (yes I know black's pawns are advanced and more exposed). But in my experience with symetrical pawn structures (but in the queen's gambit instead of the ruy)  when pieces are being exchanged, indeed most of the time it's a draw unless I'm playing someone quite a bit lower than me. I think white is a tiny bit better, but only a tiny bit because it looks so hard for white to actually attack the pawns; maybe in a pure rook endgame this would be great but I'm sure black can straighten out his structure before allowing that if at all. Absolutely it should be a draw, and if I was playing someone equal to me, it would probably be a draw. Now if there were more imbalances in the structure even with the material was even, sure it would be less drawish, but symetrical pawn structures like that are just very drawish, even for under master. There are not many truly drawish positions in amateur chess, but I'd say that's one of them.

JG27Pyth, white has nothing to worry about himself as he'll easily get all of his pieces, meanwhile he can try to simplify the pieces so that his rook could occupy the 6th rank. But like I said that just probably won't happen. But there are people who don't study endgame at all and are clueless about the basics (I used to be), so by all means play it on. But if I were black I don't think I would have trouble drawing against an equal opponent.

I agree about the symmetrical pawn structure being the main reason. Another thing is that since both open files are open for both players and nobody has control over one file, the rooks will likely both be traded quite quickly. Making it less likely that either player can penetrate and start nabbing pawns.