The dissapearing attack. What did I do wrong?

The title pretty much said it. In this game I thought I got good pressure and nice activity on my opponents slightly weakened kingside... but the attack just dissapeared. Can anyone tell me were I went wrong?

Of course any other comments or constructive critisism would be greatly appreciated too.

Thank you

You traded all your pieces, normally trading pieces makes it easier to defend.

Arutha, it's great that your clearly have an interest in chess openings, and in trying to improve your playing style.  But I think you have to go 'back to basics' a little.  Simply put you made a few too many clear errors, and gave away too many usefull pieces.  You need pieces to attack, so, giving away less of them would really help your attacking play.

Perhaps not the answer your looking for, but not giving up material is pretty central. 

Thank you both Wouter and Mattos.

Not at all, Mattos, thats exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. Its ironic, I don't actually spend any time studying opening theory, I just seem to be able to read and remember wee snippets that I read, but I digress. The exchanges I made occured naturally to me, I didn't even notice I was doing it so I'll definately be watching out for that one in future!

The only thing I'd say in my defence is that by the time I'd played 20.Ng5+ I already had the sense that my 'attack' was dissolving.

Cheers

18. Q x N ch  causes loss of R with 18...... R f7   19. Qx Rf7

or 18......Kh8   19. N f7 threatens Q so R takes N and Q takes R

and white is down a R and N and in a hopelessly lost position

or 18.....Kg7 19. Qe5 ch wins B (19. R f7 ch starts to get too involved for me to analyse here but W is up a lot of material in most if not all variations.

So this is just a tactical and winning move you missed.

24. a major problem for you is you still havent developed your QR or QB as you really need to join your rooks

The bishop was a constant issue. I kept trying to get it involved but once I started being agressive there wasn't time. I should've fully developed FIRST, then thought about atacking.

Eureka!

Haha, yup DrSpudnik. It certainly seems that regaurdless of what else is going on, what style you play in or what openings you play it is IMPERATIVE you get your pieces active, fully developed onto good squares and THEN think about aggression!

This is something I learned only by the horrible experience of starting an attack and then needing a Knight that is back home on b8, which also keeps a potentially handy Rook out of play.  

Most games where I stomp an opponent, are games where they don't finish their development before starting something they just can't finish.

In this game: a d-pawn opening known for White having a big space advantage, the space can be used for a long time to slowly improve piece placement and then spring the attack at the right moment. When you apply this stuff in a game and it works out, post the result as a lesson in how to improve by developing. Maybe side-by-side with this unfortunate event.

You seem to understand alot about the game for a 1300 player!

I would just like to point out the positional mistake of your last move - lucky you got the draw! After 29.Bc1 Rf1+ 30.Kg2 Rg1+ and Black has many moves to improve his position before White can unpin the pawn on b2 and the Bishop.

I've had one or two of those experiances DrSpudnik. I keep the analysis of every game I play so I never forget any of these.... debacles =P

I wont forget this one, thats for sure! Thanks for all your advice ^.^

Thats why I'm trying to be more aggressive over the board, Vowles. Positional play comes quite naturally to me and I'm sick of sitting in better positions and struggling to do anything, so I've decided to go after my opponents right from move 1. As you can see, though, my tactical vision and attacking savvy are still catching up... but hey, no harm in improving your weak areas, right? And I didn't notice the final variation you gave... you're right, I was lucky

You shouldn't exchange your pieces unless it leads to a favourable endgame.  If you want to attack you should generally avoid piece exchanges altogether.

I'd say that you traded a little too much to get a checkmate in the middle game. 

Thank you all for your excellent criticisms.

I'm certainly gaining a better appreciation for development, and I completely agree that I traded too many pieces with too little compensation and was far too over-eager to enter tactical complications and mate the guy when I should have just played basic, simple chess first.

All the comments have been a great help! Keep them coming if anyone has anything more to add!