Cat and Mouse Game (TNM round 5)

So the Sveshinkov was an opening I feared facing as the ideas can be farely subtle and it's not easy for white to get an advantage at all. Players such as myself feared facing it enough that attempts such as 3. Bb5 and 3. Nc3 had become more popular. I recently played 3. Bb5 in a game trying to avoid the Sveshnikov (although I realized it was probably a bad decision to trade one line I didn't understand for another line I didn't understand). But for this week's Tuesday Night Marathon game I decided I would spend some time studying ideas in the Sveshnikov. Overall I was quite satisfied with the work I had done and was eager to take another crack at the Sveshnikov. However! I arrived at the board on Tuesday, sat across from WIM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs and played 1. e4, and she somewhat surprised me with her response: 1..e5 . I can't say I was completley shocked, I have learned through experience that when you prepare a line, not only is it possible you won't face that variation, it's possible things will deviate much, much earlier. I remember one time preparing a line of the french for a game against my friend only to see 1. c4 on the first move.

So anyways I continued 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5! the first time I have played this move in over 2 years (I was U1600 the last time). 3..a6 and now I had a real decision to make. I had tossed around the idea of playing the exchange variation for a while as I think it kind of fits my style, but after doing some analysis, I wasn't completley happy with whites positions and I had thought I should abandon this for Ba4, however, I also realized here that my opponent probably had studied the main lines first (logically) and might not have gotten to the sidelines yet as she has not played 1..e5 in any recent tournament so I played 4. Bxc6!? and after about a minute, I realized that this was a great decision as she was still thinking, after about a 5 minute think she played bxc6 which is a slightly dubious move, but possibly trying to avoid my preparation. Anyways, it's curious how many decisions in this game in the first 4 moves alone were made that were not necessarily objective decisions, but instead practical decisions. Normally I try to avoid making "practical" decisions this early in the game, but it was interesting really knowing all this was happening at the board. 1.. e5, 3. Bb5 4. Bxc6 and 4.. bxc6 I would say were all "moments" during the game.

I did go on and win a spectacular (but flawed) attacking game after missing a knockout fairly early in the game. Oh well, such is chess, not all games will be perfect, but my goal is to just make fewer mistakes which I don't think I made too many of this game.