Off the Board Weakness

A few of my biggest personal weaknesses are displayed in the following game. During the game I was stubborn, short-sighted, brittle, easily agitated, and not willing to put in the effort from the start because things weren't going my way.

It is a Ruy Lopez opening which put me off from the start. Fully realizing that I have the potential to influence the character of the opening, I still let it bother the heck out of me. I proceed to play uninspired moves and the instant things don't go exactly the way I expect them to, I start pushing pawns and not considering the consequences.

So, here you have it: in true form, a Lindsey meltdown. All I can do is be better next time...

Brittle


[Event "Let's Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.03.10"]
[Round ""]
[White "chessdude46"]
[Black "lindseyann"]
[TimeControl "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO " "]
[WhiteELO "1222"]
[BlackELO "1231"]


{A recent and terrible loss. My opponent was rated much lower than me, but he played the Ruy Lopez which always puts me off.}
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6
{And we arrive here. My least favorite opening of all time. I'm seriously considering switching to 1...c5 after 1. e5.}
5.O-O Bg4 6.Nc3
{He leaves the book here.}
6...Nf6 7.d3 Bd6 8.Bg5
{No one has made any major mistakes at this point, but look at how ugly this position is.}
8...O-O 9.Qe2 Be7 10.Rad1 Nh5
{It would have been a bit more practical to play Nd7 right here. But, I was eyeing N to f4 and eventually that move will be my undoing.}
11.Bxe7 Qxe7 12.h3 Bxf3 13.Qxf3
{So, all of the trades happen pretty much as I expected them to and black really has nothing to show for it. Neither does white. Snooze fest.}
13...Nf4
{All I had in mind at the end of it all was this move. Thinking that if I could just have a strong knight on f4, maybe I could break through with pawn f5 and actually give this game some character.}
14.Ne2
{For some reason, I completely missed this response. He let all the air out of my plan and I sort of gave up at this point. I'm not very proud of that fact, but its the counterpoint to all that resilience I showed during the live game.}
14...Nxe2+ 15.Qxe2 Rad8 16.Rfe1 f5
{I really wanted to make something happen. I hoped that opening up everything would magically work in my favor. This was not the correct way to play. Better here would have been a good old fashioned rook lift, Rd6.}
17.d4 fxe4 18.Qxe4 Rf4
{Getting frustrated and lazy, I make my worst move of the game. I didn't consider the fact that my pawn on e5 would be pinned if he played Qxf4.}
19.Qxf4
{Which he did. There was no coming back from that point and I resigned.}
1-0