Blood, Sweat, and Pawns

The Beginning of the End

It's 7am on a Tuesday, barely awake, just grabbing my phone to check my Lonewolf pairing.
My eyes widen.
My heart sinks.
I'm playing IM John Bartholomew — @Fins.

Preparation

My worry only grows when I realise @Fins is going to play the Scandinavian against my beloved e4.
What do I do? The devil on my shoulder begs me to play 1. g3, but who would I be to fear a pawn moving two squares?
Let's take a look at my normal Scandi line:

No — too boring, I need something better, something unique, something that will leave @Fins lost in what to do. Preparation is my only hope.
Then I see it.
Is this what love feels like?

Schedule

I was so close to marking myself as unavailable this week.
Still, I marked myself as available just in case I got to play @Fins.
I had limited availability, but ended up scheduling the game for Sunday 1900 UTC.
That's 5am my time, on a Monday.
Recipe for disaster.
Right after my OTB tournament, which I'd been focusing on nonstop?
Perfect.

The Game

Barely awake, scrambling for food, here we go:

Now it's time to lose all the clock advantage I gained, not like I was going to get any other advantage anyway.

Miserable endgame, @Fins is probably going to win this without ever giving me another chance... obviously?

Lonewolf League

This game was played in the Lonewolf League, a side league to the flagship 4545 league, but still popular in its own right. Details can be found at: https://www.lichess4545.com/lonewolf/.
The LoneWolf League is an 11-round individual Swiss tournament that is organised through the Lichess4545 Slack workspace. Players are assigned one game per week and can mark themselves unavailable for any week, for any reason.
The time control is 30+30; each player starts with 30 minutes on the clock and receives an extra 30 seconds for every move they make. The league is split into Open and U1800 sections, so there's competition for all levels.
If you haven't tried it, I strongly recommend joining in!