How could I have won this game?

I played this game recently, and I ended up with a draw. Was there any way to win this game? Maybe, but I can't spot it. Your opinion on this game would be helpful.

Well, when the game ended I think it is your opponent who has the better position.

19 Rhd1 try not to use rooks to gard pawns who can be guarded with pawns. 19 c3 looks better for me since 19... b4 is no problem due to 20 Rxb4.

black looks like a solid favourite to me. not sure why black agreed to the draw.

i'm not that good a player, but i believe 19. Rhd1 was not a good move.. 19. Rbd1 might have been better.. with 19. Rhd1, you had to abandon d4 to put pressure on f7 the next move, but with 19. Rbd1, you would have kept defence of d4, but put pressure on f7 at the same time..

and to be honest, my opinion is that you might have been lucky to get a draw.. had black rejected your draw, he could reject your rook trade offer, by 22... Rdxe5, then wherever you move your king, he could go 23...Rxc5 and from 1 pawn down, you would become 3 pawns down, and probably later on lose the game..

my personal opinions only though.. might be wrong..

yep blacks pawns, altho not great, look a lot better than whites to me, if i had been black I would carried on he's got the draw whenever he wants it and a good chance of a win. I think you did well to get a draw Supergamer.

4.Bxc6 is fine, but it's much deeper and more complex than winning the pawn on e5, which is impossible due to the move played which wins back the pawn with advantage to black.  You should probably just play something like 5.0-0 but watch out for tricks after 5...Bg4 6.h3 h5! where the bishop is immune for now and things get rather complicated. 

hehe "Taking back the black queen. Was there another move?"  Literally, no. 

15.Rab1 should have lost to 15...f6 winning your pinned knight.  You needed to get your king off the e file. 

I could understand agreeing a draw in the rook and pawn endgame immediately after the knights come off (maybe? although black is still better I think), but the final position after you blunder all your pawns is a clear win for black.  22...Rxc5 is the obvious continuation.

Thanks for all the advice guys. apparently, the blunder was at 19.Rhd1.

Note to self, should have played 19.c3.

Black really had this game won... no idea why they resigned. Something you may want to watch out for, that queen exchange that happened. Perhaps you should look into the good exchange variation, if you like trading queens early.

Instead of 18......Rbd8, f6 looks good to me for black since whites pawn is pinned.  

There is a nice tutorial of Ruy Lopez on chesskids.com. See what it has to say about move 5. Nxe5

http://www.chesskids.com/level3/cl7l1.htm#t4

http://www.chesskids.com/level3/cl7l1.htm#t7

They actually recommend 5. O-O.

Richard

Thanks rlhoad. Those sights really helped.

I read the other posts and agree black should have played for the win.

noted kyleevon. People, please stop telling me black should have kept playing. Tell me what I could have done to change that!

If you want to play for a win using the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez, then you have to utilize the imbalances that you have created.  

1) You gave him doubled pawns.  If it goes into an endgame, you will have a structural advantage.  That is one of the key ideas behind the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez.  

But then you rushed to trade Bishops (not sure why you wanted to do that), and then trade knights; ultimately, you gave up your structural advantage by allowing him to double your pawns on 12. Nac4...Bxc4.  Already that early in the game, black has a good game and can probably comfortably play for a draw.

2) Leaving your knight and king on the open e-file probably wasn't advisable.  Although you didn't lose material out of it, the opponent could've played an eventual f6, pinning your knight to your king.

3). Rhd1 making a passive rook move (instead of c3) might have allowed black to play b4 (to prevent c3) and them double up on the weak d-file to attack your backwards d-pawn.  

I would say that after you allowed black to exchange so many pieces and double your pawns, your advantage was basically gone.  The one imbalance you had in your favor was that your king was closer to the center.

To add to that, after black took your d-pawn, black is winning the game....and it is white who is lucky to get a draw!

It's painfully obvious from what has been said already.  Clearly the blunder was not putting your rook on the d file (Rhd1), although this was probably not the best move.  Your blunder, the one that was actually punished, was moving the rook OFF the d file after you had put it there (Rf1??), thus giving away all your pawns.  So the obvious answer to your question is "you shouldn't have moved your rook off the d file until you had found some other piece to do the job it was doing, ie protecting the pawn." 

You made some serious errors before this which have already been mentioned, but they werent really punished.

as i said, you should have played 19. Rbd1 and proceed on from there.. at the end of the game (move 22 when you drew), there was absolutely no way to change it already.. it was already all over and would have been a defeat for you.. no way to turn it around..

Great tutorial! Very nicely explains why you don't take that pawn yet... but I want to know why this is the image they used for an opening devised by a SpanishPriest?

Come on, that dude's a refugee from a Mexican wedding band!

The real Ruy Lopez would not be amused.

"Do I look like a Mariachi musician to you? DO I? And why did you take the pawn? Answer me."

If you want to play the exhange variation of the Ruy Lopez, you should study it deeply.  As others mentioned, the point is not to gain the pawn in the middle.  If you want to know one specific move where you went wrong, I'd say Ktxe5.  It's not like the game was irretrievably lost at that point, but Black owns a half open file with this queen, you have two pieces in the middle that need defense, and you proceeded to double your own pawns and traded material for no immediately conceivable reason.

That said, I like your desire to play a sharp game.  When you have studied the exchange variation, it will come in very handy.  I still haven't studied it completely, but few people below a 2000 rating are going to understand how to deal with it.

You had no positional advantage at all after move 12.  Black owned the open files and should have seen that he could take your knight and give up only a pawn.  I would suggest studying Paul Morphy's games to see how to play positional chess.

thanks kamapuaa. I have actually been using the Ruy Lopez for a while, I just never knew it. I guess thats my Q to start studying it! Thank you all for your help and advice!