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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …