A win, but a very scrappy one. Pretty awful stuff in there.
This opening was the Nimzowitsch Defence Declined (e4,Nc6,Nf3) into a Scotch Game, where white has 2 central pawns and the Kings Knight, and black has King pawn and Queen knight. The natural next move is 3..exd4, 4. Nxd4.
Move 3: Black’s first mistake is the pointless h5 move. This loses momentum in the center, and white has a few options. Black compounds with a second mistake Rh7. At this point white is up a pawn and 3.5, with solid control of the center.
Move 8: Castling is a mistake because it misses 8.Nd5, forking bishop and queen. The knight is threatening a second fork of rook and king on c7. The queen must remain on the diagonal because it’s the second defender of the b4 bishop. If it retreats to f8 the second fork becomes playable. By 8..Qc5 she can indirectly defend the second fork because of the new threat to white’s c4 bishop. White can still come up ahead from 9.Nxc7+ Kd8, 10.Nxa8 Qxc4, which wins white a rook and pawn for a bishop, but at the expense of strength in the center and effectively taking its knight out of the game. White can instead retreat the threatened bishop to e2, retaining a string center and the fork threat on c7. I caught the fork on the next move, but only after the black king had moved, making it much less effective. I just missed the fork the first time round.
Move 13: Here my position is pretty good. I’m up a pawn, fully developed, castled, rooks connected, a battery on a half open file, very strong in the middle. Black is very underdeveloped, and especially weak on the King side, which is where the attack should focus with moves like Qf4 and Ng5.
13.e6 is a mistake. My idea was to try to prevent the f pawn from defending the h4-d8 diagonal. I don’t think this was a bad concept, but there was just no follow-through planning. fxe6 loses a pawn and the white knight is now attacked. Meanwhile Qg5+ is not really any threat because black can defend with several pieces, most likely the g8 knight, bringing it into the game (black actually defended with the c6 knight, which was a mistake). This brings on an awful sequence, I don’t know what I was thinking here. From 13.e6 I drop from 10 ahead to 2.5 ahead by 16.Rd3, though black throws it away with 16..d5.
After 16..d5? there is a nice sequence 17.Rxd5+ exd5 18.Qxd5+ Bd7 19.Qxg8+ Be8. This loses white a rook for two pawns and a knight (equal on material), but black’s king is in a lot of trouble, and white can either can either continue the attack with Rd1+ or take black’s rook (Qxh7). I wasn’t smart enough to see that, obviously. Of the three options to take the d5 pawn I went with the worst one: exd5.
1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 e5 3. d4 h5?[1] 4. dxe5 Rh7? 5. Bc4 Be7
6. Nc3 Bb4 7. Bd2 Qe7 8. O-O? Kd8? 9. Nd5 Qf8 10. Bxb4 Nxb4
11. Qd2 a5 12. Rad1 Nc6 13. e6? fxe6 14. Qg5+ Nce7? 15. Nxe7 Qxe7
16. Rd3 d5? 17. exd5 Qxg5 18. Nxg5 h4? 19. dxe6+ Ke7 20. Nxh7 Rb8
21. Re1 g6 22. Rf3 Nh6 23. Rf7+ Kd6 24. e7 Bf5 25. Rg7? Re8
26. Rd1+ Kc5 27. Bd3 b6[2] 28. Bxf5 Nxf5 29. Rd8? Nxg7?[3] 30. Nf6?? Rxe7[4]
31. Rd1? g5[5] 32. g3 Kc4? 33. b3+??[6] Kc3 34.Nd5+? Kb2??[7] 35. Nxe7 Ne8
36. Re1 g4 37. Nd5 Ng7 38. Re7 Ka1? 39. Rxg7 hxg3 40. hxg3 c6
41. Nxb6 Kxa2 42. Ra7 Ka1 43. Rxa5+ Kb2 44. Kf1 Kxc2 45. Rc5+ Kxb3
46. Rxc6 Ka2 47. Ke1 Kb2 48. Nd7 Kb1 49. Kd2 Ka1 50. Rb6 Ka2[8]
51. Kc3 Ka1 52. Kc2 Ka2 53. Ra6#
[1] Last book move
[2] WHY not d8? So obvious. Just totally block the d rank!?!
[3] Missing the hanging g rook
[4] missing the _pawn_ is now hanging, damn!
[5] just giving up!?!
[6] Kind of tough to get why this is a blunder? It gives the king c3 and opens up the whole white side of the board, where previously the whole 3rd file was locked down
[7] A fork, but misses Kxc2, threatening rook. Fortunately, black missed it too-the only blunder
[8] Shorter mate: Kc2 Ka2 Ba6#