Annotated chess game

4. d3 is too passive; a main theme in the Lopez is to prepare d2-d4, and thanks to the pin, White can and should play it immediately.

It's useful to ask oneself "why" before making concessions like giving up two bishops for no reason. Or when annotating, to explain it.

excuse me moppa, my rating isn't 1756.

Moppa is correct. Why did you trade B for N? Was it because your pawns control the light squares & the light bishop is redundant?

Ye...what they said.

It leaves you with a backward pawn on d3 and a possible outpost for Black on d4 (although with the c6 knight gone this is admittedly less of an issue).

Since white's left pawns are abcd & black's left pawn's efgh please call them queen side pawns. ty.

Better would be to avoid this structure and play for a d4 break. You should be exploiting your lead in development, not giving black time to nullify it. Also, castling will almost certainly be done. Why not try it now?

That just drops a pawn....

dxc5 bxc5 Qxc5

& black has a backward pawn on an open file. Better was pawn takes pawn.

I disagree; cxd6 would hamper Black's attack on White's backward pawn, as well as making the bishop not so much bad as laughable. White has no prospects of being able to attack Black's c-pawn any time soon, and when the time comes, it's easy for Black to just play ...Bb7 or ...Bd7 followed by ...c6.

In addition, Qxd6 helps black's Dark-square bishop gain some movement, if ever so slight. Objectively, though, white cannot take advantage of black's ridiculous development quickly, so cxd6, increasing black's central control, might be prefered to the backward pawn that may become a weakness at some point in the future.

King side pawns. See previous comment.

But the pawn isn't *doing* anything on f3. Castle and play f4 if you want a kingside break.

Try Nc3 & castle before the pawn moves.

Nc3 blocked my blackside bishop

Only momentarily. And that's much less important than having your rook stuck and your knight unmoved.

Black was hoping to attack your uncastled king down the open d-file, but the tempo you gain on his queen prevents this by giving you the opportunity to castle.

cxb4 & black has an open file.

23. Qc2 Bxc4 exploiting the pin of the *other* knight.... incidentally, the c4 knight was not really pinned, since if White could pass a move here, Bxd2 Nxd2 Qxb3 Nxb3 is even.

Castle while you still can!