Second matching of the beginners tournament, and we split white wins. Not much more meta-commentary for this pair of matches. Game 1 A road win as white, with our caps up against each other for most of the fight. As with game 1 previously, pinning the black cap with a road under it kept options …
Author Archives: Phil
Beginners Tournament IV: Evoshen
Another year, another tournament, and only gotten a bit better. With a new member of the family last year I missed the July beginner tournament, and had to drop from the ’21 Open (I did get to play GenCon Online though!), but am excited to give it another shot this year. My first of the …
Gen Con Online Tak Tournament, 2021
With the state of the world such as it is (not to mention the arrival of my son), I was sad to miss Gen Con in Indianapolis this fall, but happy to be able to claim participation in Gen Con Online once again this year, this time in the form of another USTA Tak Tournament. …
WP-CLI With Local 6
Despite working for a different hosting company with another local development option, I was using Local for local WordPress development for years before joining Pantheon, and I recently was trying to get it working again since upgrading to the latest version. With Local 3, I learned this neat trick from Sal Ferrarello for using WP-CLI …
Beginner’s Tournament II: Match 5 vs KorokBean
Once again getting to posting/reviewing these games later than I’d like so, the notes are sparse. My last game of the round-robin games, leaving me at three match wins and two draws, or 8/10 games. With that, I have a chance of moving forward to the next round, but that depends on the outcome of …
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Beginner’s Tournament II: Match 4 vs Joagwa (BeerPoet)
My second split win. We played across two days, and each took the win as White. Game One This one might have been my favorite of the tournament (so far?). I also actually reviewed right away as opposed to days/weeks later, so I got better notes into the playback. Game Two Twenty-four hours later, we …
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Beginner’s Tournament II: Match 3 vs DoomsBeard
Split wins as white, both solid games, both of us lost to missed threats. Also the first game I got to watch back with full commentary which is always a blessing and a curse— there is plenty to learn from the commentary on a game, plenty painful to hear all the thoughts you could have …
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Beginner’s Tournament II: Match 2 vs Sky
Game 1 The hard cap next to that back wall was a nice position to hold to keep those road threats going and forcing the black capstone to keep vacuuming up pieces for a few rounds. Game 2 I felt very clever about my wall-smashing road at the end of this one, until post-game, Sky …
Beginner’s Tournament II: Match 1 vs cAlx
Another Tak beginner’s tournament, this time I hoped to review each match as I went, but of course by the time I’ve gotten started, a few days have passed and I’ve already lost most useful insight I might have had. I probably would have had more to say about these games if I’d reflected & …
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Tak Blitz Tournament, February 2021
Another Tak tournament from US Tak Association right on the heels of the beginner’s tournament wrapping up. This one was a quick blitz tournament, Something I’d played probably a handful of times before today. With fourteen players, the tournament consisted of nine rounds, clock at 3 minutes with 5 second increments, and a Komi of …