Here is a really interesting game I had with a challenging opponent recently.  I put a lot of pressure on him to castle and then boxed him in... but wasn't able to follow through in the end.  Any analysis or comments would be great - I know I made mistakes, but I'm not sure precisely where.

6 Ng5 was too early. You are not ready to attack

7 Qf3 was bad. Generally king fianchettoed positions are attacked on the dark squares with an h4 push. 6 Be3 follwed by Qd2 and o-o-o would have set up a standard attacking format.

10 Qh3 was a 2nd queen move. You don't have the pieces in place to follow through with an attack and your king is exposed. Your pieces are uncoordinated and in front of your pawns. Too slow and cramped.

Play through some Sicillian Dragon Yugoslav attacks.

Good points!

"6. Ng5 preparing to threaten an early mate with the queen." Don't you think your opponent will spot and prevent this plan? What do you gain from it? Forcing your opponent to castle is not much of a victory since his king will be safe after castling. Also, if black felt the kingside was going to be dangerous, he could play Qe7 preventing the checkmate and later castle queenside.

8. Qg3 doesn't really apply pressure on the kingside because the queen doesn't attack anything from g3. As mentioned, h4 followed by h5 would be a better way to apply pressure on the kingside.

"10. Qh3 Another mate threat" And of course, your opponent will see it and prevent it. What do you gain from making this threat?

"12. Bg5 Now attacking the queen" What was the usefulness of attacking the queen? It looks like a wasted tempo.

"18. ... Ng8 ... I really thought I should be able to pull it off at this point." Your opponent has several defensive pieces around the king. This makes a direct assault on the king very difficult.

21. Nxd5. Your king is in the center. You will be the one who is vulnerable if the center opens up.

Agreed, I made a lot of errors in this game (btw my annotations are not very good, I know).  But I did think the overall structure was interesting, that's why I posted it.  I tend to think in broad patterns and shapes on the board, but obviously I need to focus a lot more on strategy!

Thanks for the comments.  I agree with your general ideas, Protagonist (Nf3 is my usual opening move and then push my central pawns) and this was definitely an unusual game for me - I don't bring my queen out that early in most games.  I've played this same opponent 3 or 4 times now, and they've all been challenging and unique games, so I wasn't afraid to try something different.  I'm not always going for the win (the best I've done against this opponent is draw one game, so I wasn't really expecting to come out on top - though perhaps my game commentary makes it seem otherwise!) but I do like to learn something new whenever I can.