What's the next move?

BLACK TO MOVE

This is a good OTB game I played a few weeks ago. My opponent resigned at this point. I don't know why either but what is the best move for black? I've been pondering this since the game ended. I was black by the way,

Originally posted by jumpawnit
[fen]r1bq1rk1/pp2n1b1/5npp/3ppp2/5P2/2NP3P/PPPBB1PN/R1Q2RK1[/fen]
BLACK TO MOVE

This is a good OTB game I played a few weeks ago. My opponent resigned at this point. I don't know why either but what is the best move for black? I've been pondering this since the game ended. I was black by the way,

Well, I'm just a patzer with an engine. I was holding off on commenting in hopes that some high rated player would jump in with some good advice. But nobody's posted yet, and I don't want you to feel that you're being ignored by the RHP community.

My engine likes 1...e5-e4, with an evaluation of about -1.3 pawns (advantage to Black of 1.3 pawns). And a few other moves with evaluations in the neighborhood of -0.5 to -0.8 pawns. But to tell you the truth, the lines that it's spitting out are much deeper than my limited ability to see, so I really have no idea how Black is supposed to get that advantage.

If you're a master, you might have a big enough of an edge to do further squeezing and maybe get a win (pure speculation on my part, though). However, if you two are novices like me, I have my doubts that White could see enough to decide to resign based on the position. Who knows, maybe he had a doctor's appointment. 🙂

i think youre able to trap the knight with a pawn push plus a check by the queen soon

Black is certainly much better here, but I don't think that in itself would be cause for resignation. To be honest, I think that chances are some external factor was influencing the resignation (e.g. tired opponent, something else to do, etc.).
Although it is always possible that your opponent saw some kind of pawn march or something, and thought that they didn't have enough play left to warrant continuing.

Originally posted by jumpawnit
[fen]r1bq1rk1/pp2n1b1/5npp/3ppp2/5P2/2NP3P/PPPBB1PN/R1Q2RK1[/fen]
BLACK TO MOVE

This is a good OTB game I played a few weeks ago. My opponent resigned at this point. I don't know why either but what is the best move for black? I've been pondering this since the game ended. I was black by the way,

I don't know what move to recommend, but that hole on g3 and the strong black center seems so terrible for white.

I don't see a direct cause for resignation but black has a large advantage due to the huge centre after ..d4 followed by ..e4.

Originally posted by irontigran
i think youre able to trap the knight with a pawn push plus a check by the queen soon

If you are thinking of d4, then after that the queen check is not possible anymore :-)