I thought you played it fine. The only thing I saw that might've been quicker was 16 Nce4 (Bc4 did turn out to be a bit of a waste of time). But you basically have a won game/attack the minute you get the pawn on e6. Provided he has no real way to attack it (and he doesn't seem to), your position is crushing.
Thanks for the response!
Another intention of 16 Bc4 was to force him to play 16. ... d5, allowing for Be4 next move, trying to take out that knight. Instead, once he played 18. ... g6, I felt he'd weakened his kingside enough that I wouldn't need to take out that knight in that manner.
I remember considering 16 Nce4, but wasn't entirely sure of the attacking possibilities. I considered 16. ... Nxe4 Qxe4 g6 Nxh7 Kxh7 Qxg6+ Kh8 Qh7#, but what if 16. ... h6?
I remember seeing 17. Nxf6+ Bxf6 (or even 17. ... Rxf6 to provide luft), then the knight either retreats to f3 or moves to h7, causing further ambiguity about the position. I just don't remember seeing anything immediately tangible coming from 16 Nce4. Am I missing something?
Basically, I just faced a random opponent who used the KG against me, when I played Black, and I handily defeated him. Then, when I played White, I used the KG (an old tourney fav of mine) back at him, and I EASILY had him dead, but I just could not pull the trigger. I ended up winning, however, I should have won much sooner IMO. Could you guys tell me where I missed my winning blow?
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. d4 d6 5. h3 Nf6 6. Nc3 a6 7. Bxf4 Nd7?
realizing the action is going to occur on e5 if I push either d5 or e5, but moving the same knight twice vs a quickly developing opponent is a no-no. It also makes the c-Bishop useless.
8. Bd3 Be7
getting extremely cramped
9. e5 O-O 10. Qe2
was considering 10. Bc4 for the retake on e6, once I push, and if he doesn't take, and instead moves 10. ... Nb6, if I move 11 exf7, he goes 11. ... Kh8, then I couldn't see what would occur, since I wasn't clear on what would happen after 12. Bb3 Na5, though the look of those knights seemed unnatural. Then I'd have to make a decision on which pawn to retake with once Nxb3, since I was planning to castle O-O-O to allow for a pawn storm on K-side, and I didn't want to lose my h7 pressure from my Bishop, so instead I moved Q to backup pawn, so after 11. e6 fxe6 12. Qxe6+ Kh8 (12. ... Rf7 leads to 13 Bc4 winning the exchange) and from there I was unsure, but I was confident in my ability to keep the pressure. Still I was greatly weighing Qe2 vs Bc4.
10. ... Bh4+ 11. g3
not wanting to deal with 11. Nxh4 Qxh4+ g3 (relieving some of the pressure, though not much
11. ... Be7 12. e6 Nf6 13. d5 Na7
Knight is out of the gang, and 13. d5 solidifies the e6 spearhead
14. Ng5 fxe6 15. dxe6 c6?!
I was very unsure about this move. Was this the correct strategy for Black at the time? Bringing out the Queen for attacking on the 5 rank seems a bit unhelpful. I was expaecting either h6 or d5.
I feel here is where I should have had a winning attack, and I just couldn't seem to put my finger on it.
16. Bc4
The idea here is to make the threat of 17. O-O-O, leading to 18. Bxd6, winning the Bishop, because if 18. ... Bxd6 19. e7+!, winning the queen. 17. O-O-O is required so that Qxd6 isn't possible, because of the rook.
16. ... d4 17. O-O-O
preventing dxc4
All throughout the following combination, I feel I was missing some sort of finishing blow. Please see if you can find one.
17. ... Qe8 18. Bd3 g6 19. h4 Nh5 20. Be5 Bf6 21. g4
Leading to an unstoppable 22. h5, opening up the h-file further.
21. ... Bxg5+ 22. hxg5 Ng7 23. Qh2
The only way to stop this mate threat is with h5, but I was a bit unclear after gxh5 e.p. Qxe6, and was going to have to further look at it. However, I was ready to do Rh2, followed by Rdh1 if needed. Regardless, Black made his biggest mistake here, by not playing h5 first.
23. ... Bxe6
Qxe6 is slightly better, though still loses the Knight.
24. Qxh7+ Kf7 25. Qxg7 mate.
I feel like I shouldn't have had to go so far into the game. I should have had a win earlier. What do you guys think? By the way, the game where he played the KG against me was also quite a cool looking game, if you'd like to see how a Black knight spending the entire game on g3, backed up by a pawn, does (Quite well I might add...)