Saccing into the Castled King and surrounding. Now what?

I think you could have come out of it a minor piece down but with a pawn setup that is worth playing (either side could win, could draw, its game on).  But you have to take with the queen, not the knight.  Some ideas for 15) Qxe7

Your own move sequence is similar --- your final move 20 pawn position is worth a piece down and very playable, the difference is black is more developed.

Yeah, I saw both of those continuations but I wasn't entirely confident with the 15... Kxh6 line. If he did 15... Qxe7, I would have felt more comfortable with that line. However, there was no way to force him to play it.

The reason I ended up playing 15 Nxe7 was due to the threat of 16 Qg6# to which he would have to respond with 15... Qe8 to stop. Then I would be able to move my Knight with a threat on c7, winning the Rook. He then would have to waste a couple tempi to capture the Knight and then reactivate his Rook, during which time I would meet his development with 0-0-0 and then putting my Rooks behind the Kingside pawns. With 15 Nxe7 it ended up with a more simplified position, and the extra c7 pawn giving him 3 pawn islands was a nice bonus. 

What about before I pushed in for the attack? I am wondering if I could have spared one or two moves to make the attack more potent. When I played 8 Ng6 I had only calculated to move 12, though I had a sense of what would happen a couple moves before that. 

From what I'm seeing, there was no continuation with the Q+N+B attack on Black's Kingside, or at least no mating sequence. Was there something I should have done earlier? I am questioning whether f4 could have been thrown in or Nc3-e2-f3. Any thoughts? Would you have pulled the trigger? Nh4 was obviously flawed due to 7... Nxe4. Maybe I could have made it work another way?

Although I agree that 3... h6?! is fearing Ng5 too much I think that this possibility shouldn't be taken too lightly either. Your suggested improvement 3... Nf6? seems to run into serious trouble after 4. Ng5.

4. d3 is passive under the circumstances. 4. d4 threatening dxe5 and preparing to open the position in the future would have been much more to the point. Since black has spent time for h6 white should aim to play agressively in order to use the advantage in development.

The final attack begining with Bxf7+! is nice.

I do not know.  You *have* to play Bxf7 to get the attack.  If you move the queen, black can break your attack with Be6 and after that you can do little?

10) Qh4? Be6? Or a knight move to discover attack on Q?

11) Bxh6?  Bxc4 maybe?

12) Bg5!!

That would be another approach, but black probably has better moves to defend??  I dunno, just pushing pieces at random at this point.  I do not think you had a *forced* win vs an all-knowing opponent of great skill.  But what you did have was an excellent attack that would be fatal if black makes a mistake anywhere. 

Good points. Though, could 3... Nf6 4 Ng5 be answered with something like...

But that is with ideal play, I think, for Black.

I do think you are right about 4. d4. I am far too set in my ways. If I am playing 1. e4, once my f1 Bishop is developed, I naturally play d3. However, Black is not applying pressure to e4 so d3 is definitely inferior to d4. I need to not play so routinely. Thanks for the input!

I think I see what you are getting at. Though, if I let him play 11... Bxc4, my pinning Bishop is gone and 12 Bg5 is no longer valid because my Knight would be hanging. However, if he played 10... Be6, I could play 11 Bxe6 fxe6 and my g6 Knight would have a lovely new outpost due to Black's weak light squares.

Though I do like the idea of putting Bg5 into the mix somewhere as ...hxg5, Qh8# is a threat.

Thanks for your thoughts. Much appreciated :)

You're right. I was too quick to condem Nf6 based on superficial analysis of the position. It does seem to be playable move.