I just don't know what to do in these closed games. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Potentially better then their rating, but also closed positions are just a different beast. Bishops become potentially useless blocked behind walls of pawns, and knights punch way above their weight class. Just paging through the game quickly, it seems like you lost positionally when the queen side breakthrough happened, then miscalculated the simplification and ended up a piece down. I can look more later, it was an interesting game!

Thank you so much. I guess it’s like I can learn to be on the lookout for a pin when pieces are on the diagonal and the bishop can be put in position.m, but how do you study or learn to deal with this?

I would like to suggest reading a specific book.

Strategic Chess mastering the closed game by GM Edmar Mednis.

This book may be a little advanced for you, but it will teach you a couple of useful things if you take the time to read and play through the book with board and peices.

Thanks. I took a look but that book is too advanced. I appreciate it though.

I think in closed positions, the key is identifying the pawn weaknesses and targeting them. Hit the base of the chain. That's what your opponent did to you, their dark square bishop crashed through while yours was a pawn with a funny hat, not pulling their weight.

Also, there was only one open file after the exchange on move 16. Your Rb1 move was great, getting a rook on that open file. But around move 22, you send your knight to the kingside, and then attack crashes through when your opponent targets the base of your pawn chain on move 25. In the short term, I would kept the knight on c2 to play Nb4 when the bishop came in (or played it to provoke a5, which doesn't threaten as much). An idea there would be to figure out how to play Be1 to cover the base of your pawn chain and g3 to replace the dark square bishop. But figuring out what to do with that knight on d2 is a riddle. Maybe something like Be1, Rf2, Nf1 then eventually double the rooks on the b-file? And Ne3 to advance it a little?

I am a lowly noob, and know little, but I had a look at the game because I had the same question, the same issues. So many games where both sides seemed locked up and any move for either side will make all the defences crumble. It looked like both sides were pretty equal until move 23. At the point the knight moved in, the balance shifted, so I would be looking at that point in the analysis to see what else I could have done. Perhaps comparing this game to the best moves offered by the computer. I sometimes find that the computer analysis suggests something much earlier in the game that I missed.

Hopefully, someone will know the right technique to deal with that, but for my own games I have had to resist the urge to attack for the sake of it, just to make something happen.

i lookd at your game review and there are some mistakes that jump out at me. You should have immidiately traded dark squared bishops, because literally every single of his pawns are on light squares, and yours on dark. In other words, your dark squared bishop is useless(probably a massive understatement) while his is an AMAZING piece. Funnily enough, his dark squared bishop was the beginning of the end for you in this game. by move 17, you were even on material, but your position was already very bad. he just used his superior bishop to help destroy on the queen side

basically, his dark squared bishop is a permanent positional problem you have to deal with until its gone you should have immidiatley traded when your opponent played be6

your mistake is not defending your pawns properly

In this game your opponent played the opening in an unusual, and pretty risky, way, neglecting piece development and weakening his king. Your mistake was to simply carry on making "typical" London moves. When your opponent puts no pressure on your center, it's usually better to abandon the London setup and take control of the center and open up the game. Instead of 6.c3 I suggest c4, Bd3 and Nc3 taking control of the center and preparing an attack.

6 c3 is passive. You only play that in response to ...c5 so as to protect your central pawn d4.
Black has weakened his position with ...h6 and ...f6. 6 Bd3 threatening Bg6+ seems strong.

10 Bc2 is passive. Why not 10 Bg6+ depriving him of castling rights?

11 f3 makes no sense and weakens your king. 11 b3 is much better.

12 f4 closes the position and leaves your Bg3 locked in as if it were a pawn.
Logical 10 Bxd6: trade your bad bishop on the color of your pawns
for his good bishop not on the color of his pawns.

16 bxc4? is a mistake: you open the b-file and black can profit from it, while you cannot.
You could castle 16 O-O, or re-route your bishop 16 Bf2 to protect d4, or attack his chain 16 a4.

17 Ba4+? is a mistake. You trade your good bishop, not on the color of your pawns for his bad bishop on the color of his pawns. Just re-route your bishop 17 Bf2 to protect pawn d4.

23 Ne1 what is the knight doing there? It can go nowhere but back and it blocks the communication between your rooks. Better 23 Ne3.

Pawn Play and Structure - for Beginners and Beyond…https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-books-on-pawn-play-and-structure

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy