I accidentally let my opponent see my opening preparation in the playing hall. He changed what he usually plays and got a worse position.
Tomic vs Livic, Scandinavian Defense, B01 Mieses-Kotroc Variation
5th Cro. League, Rd.3, 04/15/18
After my embarrassing defeat in rd.2 of the league, I have decided to play aggressively at all costs and never to lack an active plan in the position. It’s better to get in zeitnot then to play without a plan. I prepared for my opponent (who is about 100 ELO points higher rated than me) for several days. I all I knew was that the plays g6 against e4, but, still, it was a lot to start from. All of his games I managed to find were pretty old, though, so he might have decided to play something else.
I prepared an aggressive line starting with:
1.e4 g6
2.d4 Bg7
3.c4
Here he can play e6, d6 or c5, and I prepared for each 7-10 moves in depth. So I though I did all I could. I came to the tournament venue early and I started analyzing the positions otb with one of my friends. We sat in the corner, whispering, to make sure our opponents couldn’t overhear, and it was 30 minutes before the game so almost no one was there yet. A man came to the board and said something like “That’s an interesting position.” And it was a line I had prepared. Half an hour later, when I came to my board to start the game, he was sitting across from me. So my opponent commented on my prep with me:S
I opened with e4 and he though for some time before paying the Scandinavian! I guess he must have realized I was well prepared. I ended up surprising him, though, since didn’t know the 3.Nf3 line, so I got a better position out of the opening. The rest you can watch in the video; I won an attacking game and (as opposed to last week) didn’t get scared to push my plans through.
We won as a team as well, 4:2 on 6 boards (I played board 3). We are now at 2/3 in the league, which is ok. We will know our next week’s opponents soon! We are playing on Sunday, so stay tuned for another one of my games.