After the Christmas dinner at home, my girlfriend drove me back to Papendal, where we had a cup of tea before she headed home again. After that, I quickly went to bed. It had been two hectic days, and I really needed this relaxing evening.
In the morning, over breakfast, I briefly discussed our plan for the eighth game with Rik Keurentjes. In line with the agreements made with my team, we decided to keep the opening simple today. The main goal wasn’t necessarily to win the game, but rather to play a healthy game with a balanced time distribution. Any chances that might arise from that would be a bonus, but they weren’t the priority. What mattered most was to recover and allow myself to realize that playing standard positional games could ultimately be enough to win the match. I wanted to return to the basics for a moment.
We expected Anikeev to repeat the opening from the sixth game, since he felt comfortable with it and even nearly won that game. He would likely leave it up to me to find something better than what I played in the sixth. Of course, we were prepared for anything, but this seemed the most logical scenario given the course of the match so far.