A simultaneous over the board experience

I usually don't play over the board. I find it interesting but I don't have the time for that. I never played in clubs or tournaments. My chess efforts are rather programming related. But today I was visiting a local gaming fair and part of it was IM Cliff Wichmann playing 16 boards simultaneous chess. My wife convinced me to play one of the boards. I did and no surprise I lost but not as badly as I thought.

I played black and had a rather bad opening. White played a Queens Gambit and I actually don't know much theory of it. My chess engine plays openings from its opening database so I did not put much efforts in learning all the variations while programming it. So my little knight was chased around and White had the control of the center after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cd Nxd5 4. e4

However I survived the opening without plundering away any material and had a rather strong middle game. Our play led later to this position.

 IM Cliff Wichmann vs. Thomas Petzke

  White to Move

So I had a knight and rook vs. the bishop pair which I considered Ok. I analyzed the position at home with iCE and also stockfish. Both agree that black has a slight advantage of a bit more than a pawn here. But due to my lack of routine I wasn't able to hold that advantage. I had played already 90 minutes and my board was one of only 3 boards that were still played in the tournament. So my thinking time dropped because with only 3 boards left my opponent appeared very rapidly after his move at my board again. 

He stormed with his h and g pawn, I was later forced to trade my rook against a bishop and a pawn and he finally promoted 1 move before I could where I resigned. 

It was quite an interesting experience anyway.