My game against IM Igor Zugic

Yesterday myself and fellow chess.com member TheGrobe both participated in a simultaneous exhibition for charity put on by the Calgary Chess Club featuring the 2006 Canadian Chess Champion IM Igor Zugic, whose current rating I was told is 2553. I've posted pictures of the event here.

Anyways, I'd like to recieve some feedback about the game Igor and I had, and I'm sure TheGrobe will post his game in this thread at somepoint also.

I've never played an IM before and I was fully expecting to be obliterated by flashy tactics, which wasn't the case. When I finally resigned, I was just a knight down, I think he was playing very slowly and conservatively - it got me thinking about how people playing simuls might quickly size up and categorize their opponents around the table; I was probably one of the weakest players in attendence and so he was likely conserving his real thinking for much better players and playing very slowly but surely with me or something.

I am pleased that I got to put him in check once, and that I got to "threaten" a back-rank mate and force him to create a flight square. Empty, ultimately, but you take what you can get against a player of his calibre, right?

Here's the game;

So what do you guys think? All in all, pretty dull, right? Any ideas though?

Porbably not, Eric. What would you have played there do you think?

Well to be honest I don't really like 3.e3 either

 But maybe just something simple like 5.Nf3...I'm not sure what theory recommends. 

@Locke86: 

No to my knowledge, again, I had to get back to work... I would've really liked to have stayed and played it out just to see how long I could last. Before the match TheGrobe and I were like, let's see which of us can hold out longer. He got pretty brutalized, I remember looking over at his board and seeing tons of captured material. He says he'll post his game later so that'll be cool to see.

There were some other players in attendance associated with the Calgary Chess Club that were experts, for sure. I liked seeing how long Igor would pause at respective games, and of course, always got a thrill whenever he'd think for just that much longer on a given move in our game.

It was lot's off fun, taking time in the middle of the day of work to play in a simul, haha. Oh, and this has nothing to do with anything but they also handed out chess-keychains, which I think is pretty swanky. Should've got a picture of that too. It's shiny.

Well played, Rael, well played!

However -- though I'm no judge -- 5. b3 may have been a mistake. It allowed Igor to easily cruise in for that nasty knight pin of his.

Here is my game -- it's a sad sight to behold.  I really wish I'd played better.  I blundered on move 10 and he pounced with a nice combo to fork my queen and rook.  I really messed up on 15 though, where I thought I'd picked up a pawn, but in reality had hung my knight.  I was ready to resign there, but Rael encouraged me to play on -- everything after that is desperation, and sloppy careless play to boot.

Rael, you mentioned small victories -- I really made Igor think after 10. Nde2.  He paused at my board for 20-30 seconds.  I remember thinking, "yes, I've got him thinking -- that has to count for something".  After the bishops came off the board (opening the f-file for my rook as planned) he shocked me back to reality with 11... Ng4.  It was only then that I realized why he'd paused at my board after I offered the bishop exchange.

My "small victory" was short lived indeed.