1. Qxd5+ Kh8 2. Rf3 Qd2 3. Rxf5; 2... g6 3. R3xf2 Ng3+ 4. hxg3 Rxf2 5. Qd4+ Kg8 6. Qxf2 Qh6+ 7. Kg1 Rxd3?? 8. Qf7+ Kh8 9. Qe8+ Kg7 10. Rf7#.

Actually, 2... g6 3. R3xf2?! Qh6 is tenacious, and I'm not sure if White can win a piece then, but anyway, 4. Qe5+ Qg7 5. Qxg7+ Kxg7 6. Bxb5 looks won with the extra connected queenside passers.

However, 3. Qe5+ Kg8 4. R3xf2 is a better move order for White - the queen is now covering g3. 4... Ng3+ 5. Qxg3 Rxf2 6. Qxf2; 4... Rc5 5. Qe6+ Kg7 6. Rxc1.

I forgot to mention that 2... Rc5?? loses to 3. Rxf5! Rxf5 4. Qd8+ Rf8 5. Qf8#.

Ah, OK, 1. Qxd5+ Kh8 2. Qxf5!! (threatening Qxf8 and Qxh7) Rxf5 3. Re8+ Rf8 4. Rxf8# wins much faster. Derp. Congrats on finding it OTB!

What I failed to see previously was that 2... Kg8 doesn't save Black: 3. Qd5+ Kh8 4. Qf7! Qa3 5. Rxf2 Rc1+ 6. Bf1.

After 2...Kg8 there is 3.Qxh7+ Kf7 and then I repeated once and played Rf3+ to win the f8 rook. But there was a mate instead: 4.Qh5+ Kg8 (4...Kf6 5.Qf5#) 5.
Bh7+ Kh8 6.Bg6+ Kg8 7.Qh7#.

I would have much preferred to play this and it should be something very easy for me to spot since that pattern is extremely thematic given one of the openings I play but I think I was very focused on just taking the rook and safely being up tons of material. Plus I was missing a lot of things and really didn't want to screw up this lucky gift win.

Ouch! I had a feeling that there was a mate but had forgotten this pattern, namely, that, after 5. Bg6+, f7 is taken away from the king by the bishop. No other move works.

My chess strength has def declined since the puberty

Haha!

No, I'm JUUUUST shy of that one.

I started playing organized OTB last October. I've been interested in chess all my life (played in a club briefly in my childhood and then had on-and-off interest phases all the way up to now (I'll be turning 40 this year)). For example, I've still got a 1960s German print of Nimzowitsch's My System, which I bought in a chess book store in Berlin in the 90s. But I've never really actually PLAYED lots of chess. I liked reading about it, and whenever I could catch coverage of a tournament on TV, I'd tape it and watch it over and over again (pre Youtube-era ldo), I read stuff like My System and other books mainly on strategy, thinking they'd improve my chess. Obviously that doesn't work when you're still pretty weak (but under the illusion you're not because you've been interested in that game since childhood) and do basically zero tactical or endgame work (and never play "serious" chess). So, for the longest time I played zero OTB, and on-and-off online, mostly blitz, though. Blundering pieces left and right (but putting my knights on "good" outpost squares on open files. Yay!), tilting when people beat me who played ridiculous unpositional stuff, because I "deserved" the win because my chess knowledge was higher (which was likely true, but your checkmated king cares ****all about your chess knowledge).

So, last October I signed up for the sub-1400 DWZ section of an open tournament near me. A few months before that, I had already begun doing more serious work on my chess SKILL (as opposed to knowledge), i.e. tactics and endgames mainly, and estimated my DWZ to be nowhere near the 1400 mark, but figured/hoped I'd also not be the worst player in that section.

Long story short, I finished 9th out of 40+ players (lots of kids, of course) with +2 (4.5/7). I had to accept two draw offers from two kids in basically winning positions, because the time control was G90 flat (no increment), and in both situations I had <5 minutes left with them being over 15. Another game I lost in the very move I declined my opponents draw offer (I was right in declining, as I had the better position, but blundered the whole game away by force in the next move). So, 3 wins, 3 draws, 1 loss. Not bad for the first tourney, imo. I performed 1225 DWZ, which was also my initial DWZ assigned to me by our federation.

The guy who ran the tourney and who also runs the local club watched me play a bit and, seeing my results, immediately recruited me for their lowest league team (Kreisliga - "Kreis" is German for something like "County", except way smaller, because in Germany everything is smaller than in the US, of course), and he said that he believed I could be a valuable addition to that team's ambition to win promotion to the next highest tier in the German league system.

Turns out he was right. I absolutely crushed league play, going unbeaten 5.5/6 in my first season, playing no small part in actually achieving the aforementioned goal of promotion to the higher league. A big reason for my good performance was the time control in that league. Still no increment, but 2h for 40, plus 1h for the rest. Way better for my slow thought process, and my diligent "Checks, Captures, Threats" routine which is one of the best advices I read anywhere ever on chess. On the DWZ level in that league (<1000 - 1500), diligently blunder-checking with "Checks, Captures, Threats" makes you incredibly hard to beat, and more often than not, you will get winning chances.

After that season (my DWZ being well into the 1300s), I entered my 2nd open this spring; another sub 1400 DWZ section with 60+ entrants (time control a comfortable 90 for 40, plus 30 for the rest, and a 30s increment starting move 1). I went unbeaten with 3 wins, 4 draws (5/7) and finished 4th, one place shy of a 50€ price.

Still an incredible result, though, of course. My DWZ is now in the 1440s.



The conclusion is, however, that I had underestimated my long-time-control OTB rating by a fair bit before signing up for that tourney last year. I'm unbeaten in OTB play since that one game last October, and while that's a nice confidence boost, those are certainly not results the way they "should" be. As an amateur, you should aim to play competition against which you score about 50% over a reasonable sample, and the opponents last season were just mostly way weaker than I am.

This must and will change. I'll enter higher sections in opens, and since we won promotion to a higher league, will play better opponents in league play naturally, as well.

Germany has a "League Pyramid" in basically every sport that exists. Usually at the top you have a Bundesliga (In chess that's the one MVL, Aronian, Giri, Caruana (and virtually every other top player you've ever heard of) play in. That's a nation wide league.
Below that, there's the 2nd Bundesliga. Also nation wide, still quite a few 2600s playing in that one I think. Mostly 2500s though.
Below that it gets smaller and smaller geographically, and weaker and weaker in playing strength. Each league offers promotion opportunities for the league winners (sometimes also the runners up) to the next highest tier all the way to the Bundesliga.

The lowest possible tier in Germany is the Kreisliga, the one I played in last season. So I'll play in the 2nd lowest German league tier next season.

The guys I played with last season were nice enough dudes. They won't become my BFFs or anything, but there was good comradery. For away matches we usually meet at our club venue, and drive to the matches together in one car. During the ways there and back we discuss anything and everything chess related, and obviously also our games. Most of us are reasonably able to visualize and "talk in notation" as it were, to at least give the others a general idea of what's going on, so the talks on the way back are mostly focused on our games, and they are very interesting. I'm quite happy with that. It certainly felt like a team, but I obviously only have one season's worth of experience, and I'm sure other teams are different.