Another pair of matches from our round-robin group, this time with Skyward.
Match 1
The first match had a lot of back and forth and some trading of Tak threats— Skyward got his cap out somewhat later, but in an excellent position, and it took me a few more rounds to get it neutralized. Our group of capstones and walls (nobles, to steal a term from Bill) around move 23 was interesting, because before that, the white cap was not “pinned” in the sense we saw in my previous games this week, but then once it had to block the “drawbridge” (More Bill vocabulary from Mastering Tak) moving off e3, it was.
Game 2
Shorter game than the first, and opening with adjacent stones during the initial swap, AKA “the hug”. I feel like any time I’m placed off a corner in the opening move throws me more than it should, because it’s so different from the norm, but it shouldn’t change the game especially (and is arguably a stronger start, though some disagree). The last time I recall this was during the Blitz tournament last year against Reid. Two high points of this second game for me were when I was able to isolate the black cap out of play at move 8, and black’s threat at 13 I almost missed.