Tag: Beginner’s Tournament II

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 Doomsbeard‘s games— He could take the group if he wins all four remaining games, or we could be tied (which would go to a blitz runoff) if he draws either match.

Game 1

Don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. I had a fun Tinüe at the end, although didn’t quite play it out, it was getting there. With some slight variation, it looks like I had possible wins a little faster, but took the slightly longer approach to Tinüe.

Game 2

A “Knight” opening served me well, although I worried about taking my cap out of play by spreading it to the edge in that early play, I eventually got it back in the middle after a scenic trip around the board.

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 played game two, and BeerPoet had me on the ropes pretty much the entire game. I’m fairly sure it would have ended up with a Tinüe in those bottom two rows anyway.

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 had without the pressure of clock and tunnel vision being in the middle of a game brings.

Game 1

Game 2

A bit harder to step through in the embedded view, but this one has a few more branches explored if we had been better about catching the threats we missed.

Commentary from Nitzel & Ineria

Ineria intended to capture from the beginning, but due to technical difficulties, they picked up on Nitzel’s stream about halfway through the first game. You can watch the whole video from Twitch. Always lovely to hear the commentator’s confused voices with such classics as “Why did he do that?” and “How do I pronounce pwhaug?”.

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 pointed out I had a solid Tinue halfway through the game I flat out ignored multiple times, hyper-focused on the horizontal threat. Reviewing the game with ptn.ninja it seems impossible to me that I would miss it, yet there it is.

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 & reviewed right after the games, but a solid opening match for the tournament. Two hard caps in game one was a unique development.

Game 1

Game 2