Damkunst

The ninth game actually went according to plan. We had found a novelty in the opening to surprise him, and the technical plan behind that novelty worked out perfectly. My time management was excellent, I was fully focused at the board, and I managed to reach what was essentially a winning advantage. On top of that, it felt good to see that he was nowhere near as solid as he tried to appear! Cracks started to show in his play, and this was the moment to keep up the pressure.
Of course, at the same time, I was seriously frustrated for missing the chance with 43.44-39!, but I couldn’t dwell on it for too long; after each game, I usually had around two to three hours before dinner, and then we already had the team meeting for the next game. In those few hours, I often went for a walk, a run or a bike ride to clear my head.
The team meeting that evening was somewhat similar to the previous one. The first question we asked ourselves was whether we wanted to repeat the opening from game 8, but this time with the double capture. In my opinion, there was no good reason to do that; he’d once again get 20 free moves in the opening, all for a difference of just a few hundredths. Besides, we had already decided not to repeat previous openings in principle, so I wanted to try something new.
However, that also meant we more or less had to come up with new ideas on the spot. That was difficult; in many of the openings I often play, he had some kind of counterplay that I already didn’t really like. In the end, I decided to go for an opening idea I know from Wouter Sipma, with the goal of at least reaching a closed classical position after the opening. Earlier in the match, he hadn’t handled such a position convincingly, so that gave me hope.