Almost at 1500

After beating a more highly rated player (1547), my rating jumped 10 points to 1497 and so I'm knocking on the door of 1500. I managed to avoid any blunders but committed three inaccuracies. The critical point in the game came on Black's 22nd move when he captured my pawn on g3. I'm embarrassed to say that I never even saw it coming because I'd forgotten that my f pawn was pinned by Black's Knight. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: link to game.

This was a serious oversight on my part. The Black Bishop had been bearing down on my King since move 18. Fortunately for me, this was Black's undoing. Three moves later he resigned. See Figure 2. My Queen check freed up the e4 square for my Knight where it forked the Bishop and Queen and even protected the f2 square.

Figure 2

Figure 3 shows the statistics for the game:

Figure 3

Even if I allowed Black to play Qxf2+, there are no further threats once I move my King. Black overestimated his prospects with the move he made while ignoring the threats that I posed. Black was significantly higher ranked than me and suffered a loss of 18 points, showing the price to be payed when losing to lower ranked players. For my part, I was lucky that Black's unforeseen capture of my pawn didn't have more serious consequences. Whenever a piece or a pawn is pinned, there are opportunities for your opponent and Black availed himself of such an opportunity. I was lucky but as I climb into the 1500s, I can't rely on luck.