I have a feeling there's a bottleneck somewhere in my chess ability.. I keep playing against better opponents with positions that I think that I should've won, yet I lose.. I got a few dozens of these kind of games, but here are two I played recently. My time control also usually goes down too much so that I need to hurry in the end, don't know here if I should play with more or less time controlling or not.. anyway, I'd just like the basic pointers of what I should improve, not the exact errors in the games below as I did see what I did wrong.. just not exactly what _kind of_ error it is I'm doing. Feels like I always reach these won positions but can't bring the victory home.
[Event "FICS rated standard game"]
[Site "FICS, San Jose, California USA"]
[White "Golub"]
[Black "..."]
[WhiteElo "1536"]
[BlackElo "1603"]
[TimeControl "1200+12"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "0-1"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Qf6 4. d3 h6 5. Be3 Bd6 6. Nc3 Nb4 7. a3 c6 8. axb4
cxb5 9. Nd5 Qd8 10. O-O b6 11. d4 Bb7 12. dxe5 Be7 13. Re1 Bxd5 14. exd5
Bxb4 15. c3 Bc5 16. Bf4 Ne7 17. b4 Bxf2+ 18. Kxf2 Ng6 19. Bg3 O-O 20. Nd4
a6 21. Kg1 Qc8 22. Qb3 Re8 23. Re3 Kh8 24. Rf1 Rf8 25. Ref3 Qe8 26. e6 dxe6
27. dxe6 fxe6 28. Rxf8+ Nxf8 29. Bd6 Nd7 30. Qxe6 Qxe6 31. Nxe6 Nf6 32. Bc7
a5 33. bxa5 bxa5 34. Rf5 a4 35. Rxb5 a3 36. Rb1 a2 37. Ra1 Nd5 38. Be5 Ne3
39. c4 Nxc4 40. Rd1 Nxe5 41. Nc5 a1=Q
{White resigns} 0-1
[Event "FICS rated standard game"]
[Site "FICS, San Jose, California USA"]
[White "Golub"]
[Black "..."]
[WhiteElo "1531"]
[BlackElo "1632"]
[TimeControl "900+0"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "0-1"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Bd7 6. Bxc6 bxc6 7. O-O
c5 8. Nf3 Nf6 9. Re1 Be7 10. c4 O-O 11. Nc3 Bg4 12. Qd3 Rb8 13. b3 h6 14. Bb2
Nd7 15. Nd5 Bh4 16. Nxh4 Qxh4 17. Nxc7 Ne5 18. Bxe5 dxe5 19. f3 Bh5 20. Nd5
Rbd8 21. Qc3 Qg5 22. Rad1 f5 23. exf5 Rxf5 24. Kh1 e4 25. fxe4 Bxd1 26. exf5
Bg4 27. f6 g6 28. Rf1 Kf7 29. Qa5 Rd7 30. Qxc5 Qd2 31. h3 Bf5 32. Qe7+ Rxe7
33. fxe7 Ke8 34. g4 Be4+
{White forfeits on time} 0-1