TL week one

I spent much time preparing for this game however my opponent (oldflyer) deviated from book rather early. Much of my preparation was out the window... however when I prepped I focused more on ideas and what not to do rather than memorization of specific lines.

I was prepared to meet the Alekhine, 2...Nf6 Scandinavian, Sicilian, and the elephant gambit. I was most worried about the elephant gambit and was struggling to grasp it. I played one game in blitz vs someone ranked 1275 (I was ranked 1200). That game was not in the Bd6 line I was expecting oldflyer to play.

In my training games against fritz I was regularly getting all tangled up. However I learned how important speedy development is by playing those games. I also learned the dangers of neglecting my queen-side development. Well after 2 nights of looking at it. One night reading and preparing to play against it... and one playing training games against fritz... I decided I was still not sure.

So a few hours before the game I went back to the drawing board. I looked at Nxe5 and decided I felt more comfortable there. It felt like a Petroff and I have played positions like that in the past. I also like the idea of playing this crazy line were I played Bxf7 or Nxe7 and he plays Qxg2... some crazy tactics...

link to watchbot page for the game

Below are 3 version of the same game:

• Just the game
• my analysis
• Rybka 2.2n2 blunder check at 20 seconds per move

NOTE: this viewer doesn't work with IE but it does with Chrome, Firefox, and safari
evals are in centi-pawns so [eval 48,11] would be eval 0.48 at 11 ply.