After I co-won Championship 5, I took a break and didn't play in Ch 6 or 7. I didn't realize that would drop me all the way to level 4. So in Ch 8, I swept level 4; in Ch 9, I swept level 3; and in Ch 10, with some difficulty, I still managed to sweep level 2. It would have been very sweet, then, to sweep level 1 in Ch 11. But the first thing I did was lose to passenger. I think that caused people to let their guard down. I won the rest of my games, and it was enough to win the championship. But since Ch 11, it seems that nobody has let their guard down again.
So, back to the present-day Championship 15:
I didn't realize until days after this game ended that it was a forfeit. I just figured he resigned. It would have been reasonable to do so. The unfortunate thing is that it means this 1.b5 doesn't get counted in my first move statistics.
Passenger got off the beaten track right away. |4.l16 is not a good block. It's a 2-5 gap from my J11 peg, so I could easily pass it on the left with |5.j16 or |5.h16. But as much as I'd like it to be that easy, it didn't look like I had a guaranteed connection to the top. I needed some horizontal spread. But because his move isn't a real block, I didn't have to put a real block on him, either; just a light touch like |5.n14 was enough to make a double threat. He can easily pass that on the right with |6.n17, but then I can move left with something like 7.j16; or he could block it on the left with |6.j17, but then I can move on the right with 7.o16. So he was wise to continue the dipper pattern. |6.m10 kept his hopes alive. At that point, he has multiple threats: J9 or J7, L12, O19, etc. Reviewing his threats, it seemed to me that they were generally unbalanced to the left, leaving the right weak, so it was a good idea to make a move to the right. With |7.p13, I have a threat of a path to the bottom, and the threat of going up on the left or the right of his L10 peg. But keep in mind that my J16 or H16 threats are still alive, so this is actually something of an H shape, not the typical Y.
The |8.m69.h6 exchange turned it into a Y (upside down), and the stem was strong, so he really needed to play down in the branches. And it needed to be a bold play. Maybe |10.i19. I'm not sure what. But |10.h16 wasn't it. That probably sealed his loss. At that point, I put in my defensive windmill peg at |11.r14, which secured my path to the bottom and made 2 viable threats to the top: S8 or K13. |12.l12 dealt with only K13, so then I had a linear commitment on the right. It was nice to have a big dividing line so that the problem is pretty much in two parts. |15.n17 was not obvious, nor was |19.m20, but I think there was nothing passenger could do. After |20.o18, there may have been some hope that I'd get overconfident and not see |21.l1822.n1623.m1524.m14. The top half didn't have anything as tricky as that. If played out, it might have ended with something like: |22.u1123.s924.q825.r1226.s427.q728.n429.q430.q531.p632.r833.p9.
So, back to the present-day Championship 15:
I didn't realize until days after this game ended that it was a forfeit. I just figured he resigned. It would have been reasonable to do so. The unfortunate thing is that it means this 1.b5 doesn't get counted in my first move statistics.
Passenger got off the beaten track right away. |4.l16 is not a good block. It's a 2-5 gap from my J11 peg, so I could easily pass it on the left with |5.j16 or |5.h16. But as much as I'd like it to be that easy, it didn't look like I had a guaranteed connection to the top. I needed some horizontal spread. But because his move isn't a real block, I didn't have to put a real block on him, either; just a light touch like |5.n14 was enough to make a double threat. He can easily pass that on the right with |6.n17, but then I can move left with something like 7.j16; or he could block it on the left with |6.j17, but then I can move on the right with 7.o16. So he was wise to continue the dipper pattern. |6.m10 kept his hopes alive. At that point, he has multiple threats: J9 or J7, L12, O19, etc. Reviewing his threats, it seemed to me that they were generally unbalanced to the left, leaving the right weak, so it was a good idea to make a move to the right. With |7.p13, I have a threat of a path to the bottom, and the threat of going up on the left or the right of his L10 peg. But keep in mind that my J16 or H16 threats are still alive, so this is actually something of an H shape, not the typical Y.
The |8.m6 9.h6 exchange turned it into a Y (upside down), and the stem was strong, so he really needed to play down in the branches. And it needed to be a bold play. Maybe |10.i19. I'm not sure what. But |10.h16 wasn't it. That probably sealed his loss. At that point, I put in my defensive windmill peg at |11.r14, which secured my path to the bottom and made 2 viable threats to the top: S8 or K13. |12.l12 dealt with only K13, so then I had a linear commitment on the right. It was nice to have a big dividing line so that the problem is pretty much in two parts. |15.n17 was not obvious, nor was |19.m20, but I think there was nothing passenger could do. After |20.o18, there may have been some hope that I'd get overconfident and not see |21.l18 22.n16 23.m15 24.m14. The top half didn't have anything as tricky as that. If played out, it might have ended with something like: |22.u11 23.s9 24.q8 25.r12 26.s4 27.q7 28.n4 29.q4 30.q5 31.p6 32.r8 33.p9.