A Seemingly Impenetrable Defence

Good day people! I need your wise suggestions for the game below in which I lost to a 1600+ rated player in Live Chess. I felt that his defence was very sound, and I was left wondering how on earth could I have punctured it and perhaps secure a win.

I know I played very badly, but it would greatly help me if I know what went wrong, apart from perhaps the poor choice of opening.

THANKS =)

trading 2 minor pieces for rook and f-pawn is usually a bad idea in the middlegame. I don't know why you went for an attack at all.8...ng4, before you even castle was horrible. If you want to attack, get more pieces into it.

Hmm yes I'm left here wondering as well. Had I castled, would've been a much more organised and safe attack. Thanks for the comment.

Not only the trading of the two pieces for rook and pawn is bad in most positions, here it is more so. The reason is that you are playing a gambit, and one of the main points in this gambit is to put a bind on d4. Giving up your dark-squared bishop will prevent you from doing that.

You are saying on move 19 that you lost the pawn for chasing after the knight. That is not true, the pawn was lost already. It all goes back to the fact that your opponent seized the control you are supposed to have over d4 in this line.

After that, there is not much to comment. You are talking about his defense, butt he truth is that you do not have an attack here. he is the one with the attack as his pawns roll forward on the queenside.

Wow you guys did not hold back at all. Many thanks for the suggestions! Paulgottlieb thanks for the link to the very very useful article. I was always under the impression that as long as the material was equalised, everything was gonna be okay. Clearly it's more than just a question of rook+pawn (5+1pt) = knight+bishop (3+3pts). It's also a question of how developed and active those pieces are.

Once again thanks for the comments =)

Agree with the previous posters, plus...

If you were so concerned about trading the f3 knight and getting a bind on d4, the time to do it was 14. ... Nd4.  Once he played Be3 your advantages on the d-file, such as they were, disappeared.

Agreed with previous posters as well. Yeah, just think about it like a passed pawn rolling forward on an open file. Yeah, its 1 frickin point! How useful can that one pawn be!? But time and time again you see the further that pawn rolls the more powerful it becomes. Some pawns can even beat out a queen and theres an 8 point difference! Context is key...

Thank you guys for the suggestions! I'll certainly keep these in mind the next time I play.

A good rule of thumb is that for an attack to succeed, you must have more pieces attacking your chosen victim than your opponent has defending it.

I'd just like to stress what someone else has already mentioned, because it is pretty important:  your opponent did not have an "impenetrable defense" - he had no real defense, really.  It was that you had no attack at all.  Swapping off potential attackers before an attack is even made generally is not the greatest idea.

I dont know why no one has commented on e6.  E5 is thematic, giving white an awkward "backward" pawn, and a happy home for the black pieces.  Without e5, I dont think black has much in the way of long term compensation for the pawn. 

I used to play an opening for white were the main focus was to put very early pressure on f7 for the fork.  d4, bf4 (queens pawn attack, Mason line) followed by nc3.  I know that bytheory nc3 is  a poor choice but enjoyed playing it as I was able to maintian tempo and often worst case scenario at least got to exchange the black bishop.  Relevant point is often the square was defended by blacks rook or castled.  I found that in almost all my games where I chose to take the rook pawn for the knight bishop I had much less as far as tactical options.  I have played endgames where the opposite applies especially if you have passed pawns on files that are off color to opponents bishop. 

on exchange move 9 a bishop and knight for a rook wasnot the best,Your two pieces are more active than the domant rook which has to sit behind.This is centre counter.Its good though also for  black.

Personally, other than the poor pawn+rook for two minor pieces trade, and some minor pawn blunders, I don't think you did anything terrible. You just seemed to be playing weakly with no real powerful tactfulness.
I think the main mistake you made was attacking so early with such few pieces, thus only being able to throw few pieces into the attack at each certain time. If you had built up the POTENTIAL for an attack gradually over time, when the time came to attack you could have had an awesome power behind it, and if you had calculated well enough you could have came out more positively.