Pete, I suggested 22.m12 as a winning strategy for black. I cannot see, how 23.n11 would prevent black from winning.

22.m12 23.n11 24.o11 25.l12 26.m10 27.n15 28.n13 29.s14 30.r13

Move 22 is where I made two big mistakes, and as a result, lost my best chance to win the twixt.ch.24.2.2 tournament. (Perhaps I might still have rescued the game later on, but a third error later ensured the loss.) Up until this point I had worked hard to keep my options open -- both to prevent being cut off by Technolion's surprisingly difficult position in the upper right, and at the same time building a string long enough -- from Q10 to O14 -- to allow me to get to the right side while still preserving a good chance to link up to the upper left. Somehow, I do not think I ever considered the 22.m12 move that Technolion has pointed out as as a winning strategy, so that was my first big mistake. Not sure how I overlooked it, since I had been considering 22.l12 and some other nearby pegs that I thought had good potential. My second big mistake was at the very same point, and is the reason to write this down as a lesson-learned for everyone's benefit -- I thought I had discovered a sure-fire win when I had not.

What I was *thinking* would happen was this: |24.k12 25.j12 26.i13 27.i12 28.j11. My mistake was in expecting it would work out in the end in this way: 24.k12 25.j12 26.i13 27.g12 28.j11 29.j10 30.i9, with a connection from J11 to H7 for the win. But what I had simply missed, in trying to think this through in advance, visualizing it in "my mind's eye" so to speak, was the connection that would exist from white's I12 peg to L11 ... one that would cut off black's connection like so: 24.k12 25.j12 26.i13 27.i12 28.j11 29.j10.

I realized this only after Technolion's 23.l11 response to my 22.m13 move -- too late. Technolion later pointed out to me that 22.m13 had left him in a very strong position. The lesson learned here, when trying to visualize how a sequence will work out, is to be careful to look out for those "non-existent" but potential connections -- ones that do not exist at the start of a sequence, but that will come into existence by the time the sequence has begun to unfold.

To compound my error, I had been so focused on white having to connect on the left side, that when I moved 24.g14 I was only thinking along the lines of 25.f15 26.i13 27.j13 28.k12 29.j12 30.j11 31.j10 32.i9 and maybe 25.f13 26.i15 27.j15 28.k16 29.l16 30.m17 31.n17 32.o18 33.p18 34.q19. In my original approach as above, white would have been blocked off from any direct move toward the bottom of the board. When I realized that my original plan was flawed and that I had to change direction, I did not stop to reconsider my underlying assumption about white being unable to go directly to the bottom of the board, and so I missed the "obvious" strong move by white of 25.k13. The lesson learned here is the importance of reconsidering *all* of your assumptions if you get surprised, whether by an opponent's unexpected move or, as in this case, by discovering a previously overlooked flaw in your own approach.

My various uncharacteristic errors here left Technolion wondering what I had been thinking. The above explains, so that everyone can benefit from my lessons learned as a result of this game, how I let an apparent winning position turn into a loss.

Thanks for your thoughts, Pete. Was a pleasure to play against you. As I pointed out in the first comment, you were very close to winning.
Maybe a bit earlier in the game you could have also disturbed me "driving" the game:
1.r4 2.p12 3.h14 4.j8 5.h10
I made this move to strengten the H14 peg and also create a double threat: directly to the top (to which you responded with 6.h7) and as a way to connect to the top right corner. Instead of immediately responding to a double thread it's sometimes better to destroy the base of the double threat on the other end. For instance something like this:
|6.i18 7.k17 8.l19 9.n18 10.l15 11.m16 12.j16 13.l14 14.h7
Now the black has two connections to the left (which of course need to find their way to the right side as well).
If white now responds to it, like in the original game with 15.n10 black has some nice options:
16.o10 17.m12 18.m9
16.o10 17.l9 18.m11 19.l11 20.k12 21.j13 22.i11 23.f9 24.g12

Just some thoughts :)

Those are good insights and interesting options. However, I found in the actual game that the potential of white's moving to k17 caused black all kinds of problems. I would think that 6.i18 7.k17 8.l19 would rather have been followed by 9.l20 10.j18 11.m18 or if 9.l20 10.l15 then by 11.j15. I think those all may be better for white than 9.n18.