Analysis?

Was hoping for some analysis on a game I recently played here.  I won, but thought there were a couple of spots I mis-stepped.  Would like the community's thoughts.  As mentioned in the commentary I feel that I struggle with openings -- I'm just not well versed enough in the common openings and variations to not feel nerve-wracked about the first few moves of a game while I feel my opponent out.  If I get past that unscathed I think I play an OK game.  Please be harsh, I love this game and I'm looking to improve here:

3. d4 is a good move. Black is somewhat passive with a pawn on d6, so white does not fear the exchange of the central pawns.

3. ... f6 looks weak, black fails to develop a piece, weakens his king, and potentially makes the development of his kingside minors difficult.

4.  d5 looks like a mistake to me. With black's poor development in the opening, you don't want to close the center. 4. Bc4, developing a piece, putting pressure on f7, and keeping the position fluid looks better to me.

(4. dxe5 might be interesting, but maybe overcommital, if 4. ... fxe5 then 5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qh5+ looks winning for white, but if 4. ... dxe5 you might have to trade the queens.)

5. h3 is not really necessary here.  5. c4 claiming space on the queenside might be a better use of time.

7. Nc3 blocks in your c pawn. One general principle is that you'd like to play on the side of the board where your central pawns are pointing. For you that is the queenside. You have a central space advantage and you could increase your space with c4. There is no rush to develop with the center closed. 

I would have castled kingside since I want the game to play out on the queenside.

My general impression is that you have more experience attacking the king than anything else. Either you need to play the opening so that an attack on the enemy king is logical, or it's time to start learning how to win on the queenside. "12. g4 preparing to disrupt the kingside." I think your chances of getting enough pieces into the kinside for a real attack are slim.

"26. Rh1 Again, should I have pushed the pawn? The king was out of danger by this point." Yes! push the pawn, the king is now in lots of danger. 26. h6 Bxh6 and now the h-file is open and black will be slaughtered. 27. Rh1 Kg7 28. Qh2 Rh8 29. Qxd6.

It's still a nice win. :-) 

Thank you for the analysis Loomis -- I think I understand where I misstepped tactically but positionally and strategically I clearly need some work.

Any other comments are more than welcome.

I never get it when a person makes a stonewall type pawn formation, only to trade off the good bishop a few moves later.....

Your play was on the queenside as has been stated.  i would have castled kingside, played Rb1 and followed up with a minority attack (b4, a4, b5) where you get to attack his c pawn.

Also, you missed 18 BxN with a discovered attack on the undefended queen and 2 attacks on the poor pawn.  Most likely followup: 18...QXQ  19. BxQ  dxc5  20. Rxc5 where you get a big pawn and some rook activity.  Your move turned out better, but it was black's error (Rac8?) that made it work.