PWTyler

Tag: Beginner’s Tournament IV

  • Beginners Tournament IV: SevMoun

    Well, we got to the last match, I lost both, and… I never recorded or posted my self-review in ptn.ninja. At the time Simmon streamed live commentary on Twitch, however, and now the video has made it to YouTube. I figured I’d add it to my collection here to complete the set, even if I don’t have the embedded self-commentary.

  • Beginners Tournament IV: Gioqw

    My last matching of the round-robin group, and we split wins as white.

    Game One

    Game one was excellent (I lost), I flagged a number of key mistakes in my review (too many!), and Gio held onto their cap for some time to cause me trouble when it finally came down.

    Game Two

    Game two was over quickly to an early missed threat. Not a whole lot of notes to it, but I liked the position I’d built for myself as quickly as I had. Black was a bit scattered, and I think I could have kept pushing the momentum on through the mid game if we’d not ended as quickly as we did.

  • Beginners Tournament IV: Skyward

    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.

  • Beginners Tournament IV: Millsmess

    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 limited, and this time, ultimately gave me the road I needed when it moved.

    Game 2

    I was worried in the first half, and too confident in the second. That extra-large citadel (fortress?) was tough to work against, limiting my options, and in getting greedy, missed the obvious road threat.

  • 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 round-robin pairings was with Evoshen, with a long and brutal first game that went to flats, and a shorter Tinue on round two. Games were 15 minutes + 10 second increment, no komi.

    Game 1

    First round, I played black and ultimately won on flats. I missed two Tinue wins throughout (at moves 26 and 29), but was only able to find 26 at first. had to reach out to Simmon to get a hint. I think I got a bit focused on the flat endgame even around that 26 Tinue, and didn’t think through the cap throw, preferring to keep placing. View on PTN Ninja for a better interface for the alternate threads. Missing from the playback is the time controls— by the end, Evoshen was under thirty seconds (although a good player can keep that momentum going on the increment for a while).

    Game 2

    We took a few minutes before this second game to let the heart rates settle a bit. Second win was a Tinue as white that I’d like to be a bit more proud of, but I was doubting the direction I was headed just a move or two before.