Smart trades, Knight management, and a terrifying escape win a clever game =]

What was the blunder you were talking about? The fork? I call that a trap. Good play by you but your opponent played really bad.

22. and 26. don't deserve "!!", maybe 22. deserves a "!".

Good game though.

It is a blunder that leads to the fork tactic (although not really in this case). A trap is more like something in the opening. Normally, as you get better, stuff like forks happens less and less- rather it becomes a tactic which dictates the play.This is why its so important to study tactics

This also brings me to my next point, you can't really move a piece somewhere 'hoping' to fork or 'hoping' to mate (e.g. hoping your opponent doesn't see Rc5) b/c you think your opponent doesn't see it.  Heisman calls this 'hope chess' and the sooner you stop 'hoping' your opponent makes a mistake and try to look for candidate moves, the better you will become. For example, had your opponent played Rc5, he would win the knight with the removal of the guard tactic.

Good Game though. Most importantly though, really focus in on tactics :)

Oh and one more thing, instead of 23. Qc3, I think 23.Qf2 is better, threatening to win the knight and also to mate-forcing 23...Nd4 24.Nfxd4 exd4 25.Qxd4 and you are threatining mate once again (Qxb6+,Qc7#) and have won yet another pawn. Also, the only way to stop the mate would be Nd7 but that loses a rook.... so looks like Black would lose a rook through Nd4 and have to play Nd7 losing a knight instead...

Tactics Involved: Double Attack/Fork/Pin

Tactics Drilling at your level can get you quite a few easy wins!

Feel Free to point  any flaws in my analysis btw

EDIT: Actually diregard all that (this is what ovethinking it does lol...), it turns out that within 5 sec of writing the above and looking at the position again Qc3 is better after all!!! b/c it forces Qf7,dropping the Queen rofl, and after Rc8, you missed a pretty rook sac Ra8+, followed by Qxc8#-this tactic is precisely why Qc3 is better

Tactics involved: Deflection

hmmm... 24 Ra8+  :)

JulianLin, 24. Ra8+ leads to 24... Kxa8

I agree with everyone that I didnt exactly take down Goliath or anything, but it was certainly a mood lifter. I've known how to play chess for several years now, but I've only begun to really enjoy the game in the last month. So I've been playing and studying in my free time.

I'm nowhere near as good as I'd like to be; I'm trying to improve and I feel like it's working =]

As far as "hope chess", that's been my weakness as long as I've been playing. My thought process takes too much of what my opponent's possible mistakes in an area might be, rather than putting myself in good spots.

I guess it's something that will get better as I gain experience.