I feel I could've won, but how?

 Thanks!

Jason 

On move 14 did you consider 14.Ng5 ? It forks the rook and the unguarded e6 pawn. If He takes with 14...Bxg5 you recapture with 15.Bxg5, getting your Bishop out of harm's way, removing one of Black's defenders, and attacking Black's Queen, all at once. If instead he plays 14...gxh6?? you have the revealed check 15.Nxe6+, winning the Queen.

So what is Black's best response? Maybe Re7, but now you've re-sezied the initiative away from Black while also moving another piece in closer for the attack.

Those are my first thoughts.

it seems you were relectant to trade queens...I can see why, but I was thinking Iwould trade being two pawns up with the f g and h files empty of his pawns.

I would have started trying to get the power off the board and push the pawn advantage 

around move 16 or 17 

Your first poor move is 0-0-0. But your opponent missed Bg4! which attacks your queen and thus the rook behind it on the diagnol. 

Now, look at your move 17. You have a few choices here. You could have swapped queens, and hoped that with a destroyed kingside that you would have good chances. The problem is that your f2 pawn is very threatened here.

For example, 17. Qxf8 Rxf8, 18.Nd2 Bh4 19.f3

But better would have been Qd2. You hurt his kingside, now its time to protect yours, and possibly work a kingside pawn push. Possible continuation would have been 17. Qd2 Nd4 18. Rb1 Nxg3 19. g2xf3+

But okay Qg6 isn't losing. And after Qg7 Qh5 was a good move. But 19.h4?? you still aren't losing but now you've reduced where your queen can go. Better would have been Kg1. But you still aren't losing! 

And Ng5 was a good move! So don't feel bad about it!

g6 was the next poor move. Better would have been Rd2.

But you were still in a possible winning position.

Then your opponent messed up again. He should have played Rxg2. But instead he gives you a winning position again with Rf6. 

However, you played a weak Qh7 as you noted. Better would have been Qg5.

Then you would have had 24.Qg5 Rxg7 25. Qxg7 Qxg7 26.Rf7+ Kf8 27.Nb5 d5 28. Nxc7 and with good chances. 

My next thought: I would have simplified after Black's 17th move with 18.Qxg7+. Your attack didn't lead to mate, but attacks don't have to. You'd already won some material and arrived at a superior pawn structure. Take the pieces off the board and Black has no counterplay and your connected passed pawns on the kingside should rule the day.

 Whoops. I wrote the message, went off to teach a class, came back and hit Submit, only to find out two others already said the same thing. :)

mcfrazier wrote:

My next thought: I would have simplified after Black's 17th move with 18.Qxg7+. Your attack didn't lead to mate, but attacks don't have to. You'd already won some material and arrived at a superior pawn structure. Take the pieces off the board and Black has no counterplay and your connected passed pawns on the kingside should rule the day.

I think your worst mistake was 2. Bc4 quote, "hoping for a scholars mate" ?! What were your ratings? I don't think anyone rated above 1000 falls for that. You underestimated your opponent badly, and payed the price.

Learn and improve my friend...

It looks like most are agreeable on why you lost. In my opinion it was not a specific bad move

but a tactics error. 

I was told by someone a long time ago....When you are ahead...simplfy it, less chances for errors 

Youare obviously an attacking player, but a good attack is based on following developmental and positional principles: challenging for the centre and developing your knights, first, with that in mind. You played well despite these drawbacks.  However 6.Qf3  0-0  7. 0-0-0 invites 7... Bg4 winning the exchange. Your queen move to F3 also blocked (and delayed) a possible pawn storm against the black king. You would have noticed towards the end all you needed was an extra pawn in  the attack and the day would have been won.  Tip: always play as if your oponent is an expert and you will never be surprised. Good game though, thanks for sharing it! 

Wow, thanks for all the tips, everybody. This has been really helpful to me.  I think the best general advice for me personally is "simplify." My hesitation to trade queens when I had a material advantage likely had a hand in my downfall. 

 Cuhulainn, you gave me a lot to think about--especially the bishop move that we both completely missed. I appreciate your thuroughness. 

 McFraser, that fork would've been nice. I didn't even notice that and was too much of the mentality that the knight was stuck. 

 KingFisher, actually my opponent was rated less than 1000, but it was on facebook chess. I have a feeling the numbers might be skewed because I'm almost rated 1200 and I've only been playing for a couple of months. I mean, I had played before that, but maybe twice a year for the last two or three years only. But, yeah, we could all improve. 

 Last but not least, Madpawn: I'm actually not usually an attacking player at all, but I'm trying to be more of one to improve my playing. The last game I played, this practice resulted in a very ill-planned queen sacrifice :-).

 Again, thanks for all the comments, everybody. I really appreciate the sharing that goes on on this site. 

Enough has already been said about this game. Just thought to mention, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 is a perfectly valid and good opening even if you don't play for cheapos (such as the scholar's mate).

It's called the bishop's opening, if you want to search for info on it.

It's not the move that was bad, it's the approach that came with it. Playing for cheapos is not greedy, as you've called it, it's worse, it's being lazy.

 Can't improve if you're lazy...

As for tactical and conceptual mistakes, others have already pretty much covered it.

Nice game.