PART 1 (moves 1-29)

Heavens. What an amazing game. I almost lost, it could have been a draw... and kudos to Pete for nearly perfect moves, as far as I can tell.

It began by standing on the shoulders of of a giant. I used a strong-arm opening that I observed in some of nie_wiesz's games (871058, 876171, 876173, 876179). The critical parts of this pattern are 2.j10 followed by 3.p12, and then -- against conventional wisdom that you should play the whole board, not pursue local battles early, and stake your claim in the larger space -- 4.o8 5.s8 6.s4. This game contains a slight diversion with 5.m9 6.l9, but that seems to make little difference in the overall pattern. The critical part is s4, where one might have considered the Medcalf Defense with s6 instead.

The Medcalf Defense might not actually work very well here, thanks to the o10 threat:
8.s6 9.u9 10.r11 11.o10 ...
... but it's still early in the game.

The pattern is deeper than Medcalf, and while similar in some respects, probably not similar enough to be considered a variation.

That said, this opening's track record is still perfect, as far as I know. I had just used it to defeat Axel quickly in game 891675 in the same tournament, with only 10 pegs on the board. But maybe nie_wiesz will have less of an advantage in the next championship with his pattern exposed :-)

Pete was the first person to use the Medcalf Defense (|9.u4) against it. I actually have no idea whether this is really a winning response, or not; I can only tell you that it made a very long game!

The next moves, 11.u7 12.q9 13.r11 14.t2 15.w6 16.v3, were driven by Pete to establish a bottom-facing gauntlet. I had been hoping to use N4 as my crushing response to the inevitable 17.q7, but as soon as he played it, I saw

18.n4 19.o6 20.p3 21.l7 22.l5 23.k5

... and then I would have two gaps to cross: L5-O8 and O8-L9, and whichever one I cross first, he can close the other one, and start making his way to the bottom. I suddenly realized that N4 worked in other games because the O8-L9 gap had been closed.

I also considered 18.p5, but I had misgivings about actually being able to connect. I had placed my T2 peg with that in mind, but on closer inspection, it didn't look so good. For example:

18.p5 19.p4 20.o3 21.r5 22.q2 23.s3 24.r3 25.p2 -- draw?
18.p5 19.p4 20.o3 21.r5 22.q2 23.r3 24.s3 25.w3 26.x2 27.t5 28.r2 29.p3 30.q4 31.s5 32.u2 33.t4 -- draw???

Sheesh, I still don't see a connection. Maybe the game really could have ended in a draw! Provided, that is, that I couldn't make it across the bottom.

So at this point my strong-arm, sure-thing pattern was in crisis, and I had to start a line across the bottom. At least, I figured it couldn't hurt my path across the top, so I might as well try. I decided to play the near side (P14 rather than P16 or farther), to increase my chances of closing that pesky O8-L9 gap in order to make a clean run across the top with N4.

18.p14 had the threat of T12 (for example, 19.r15 20.q16 21.q17 22.t12) as well as being a convenient 2-4 gap away from N10. When Pete apparently responded to the T12 threat by playing 19.t12, I immediately looked to see if it was a good time to close N10, and... well, it looked like it might be. It made me a little nervous, because the path across the bottom was not clear yet:

21.o6 22.q16 23.g16 ???

Pete wrote, "I don't understand your move, which usually means I must be missing something important ;-}", as he placed the 21.r17 peg that shut down my path across the bottom. I played 22.n4 with my explanation, and added "Well, I sure hope N4 works now, otherwise I'm in BIG trouble! :-)" ... Indeed.

Things went as I expected up to 28.k5. I think that nobody would have been surprised at 29.resign, or at least 29.j6 30.m4 31.resign. At least, I probably wouldn't have come back to look at it. Then Pete played 29.f8 instead. At first, I thought it was just desperation, and I should be able to find a move to just punch thru pretty quickly. So I looked for one. And looked. And looked. My notes say,

i6? e8? h7? h8? j8? g5? p18?

That's not a good sign! It was a really effective block:

30.h11 31.j6 32.m4 33.m7 34.i6 35.h7 36.resign :-(
or, preferably,
30.m6 31.f12 -- but this lets Pete slip by my J10 peg into the lower left corner, and the game goes into overtime. After some feverish analysis, I decided it was inevitable. I could not stop Pete from slipping by my J10 peg. At best, I could only constrain how he was going to slip by. Hope for a quick victory was lost. In fact, I had opened myself up to a possible loss, which made me regret avoiding a possible draw earlier. But the lower left corner was wide open, green fields -- almost anything could still happen. Even in hindsight, as far as I know, the game was a toss-up at that point. It seems to me that Pete made a mistake at move 41. Stay tuned for PART 2 of this exciting epic game.

Cool game. Maybe N10 was played too soon. 20.p18 might have given you more options. I will wait for part 2!

PART 2 (moves 30-56)

29.f8 stopped me in my tracks. At a point like this, it's important to take a deep breath and start making bold moves again. Relinquish any emotional connection to having the game in the bag, and concentrate on finding the best move.

One key line I was looking at closely was a ladder chase to the lower left corner. It doesn't look good:

30.i6 31.h11 32.i13 33.g13 34.h15 35.f15 36.g17 37.e17 38.f21 39.g18 40.h20 41.i17 42.k18 43.k16 44.m17 45.n13

No matter how Pete slipped by my j10 peg, I would need some support in the lower right corner, to snake around to my upper right line or threaten a connection across the bottom. Of course, not exactly knowing how Pete was going to slip by, it's hard to plan for support. His method may, in fact, depend on what I choose. Forgoing a direct reply to 29.f8 meant that if I connect to P14, I still have to cross the N4-N10 gap as well as the N10-P14 gap. There was a lot of uncertainty there.

So, 30.o16 was an educated guess. Or maybe it is more correct to say that it was a stab in the dark. I was also looking seriously at 30.m19. O16 had the advantage of a solid link. M19 covers more space. And there are many other possibilities. Finally, I chose 30.o16 on the strength of the solid link, and wrote to Pete regarding his brilliant 29.f8,

"That was a brilliant move. (I am praising you with faint damns.)"

He responded,

"Your move in response is subtly difficult in multiple ways, and even after a lot of thought I'm not at all sure whether I responded well."

... as he played the |31.h11 that I had feared in the bad ladder chase. Unfortunately, my o16 was not very helpful for that:

32.i13 33.g13 34.h15 35.f15 36.g17 37.e17 38.f21 39.g18 40.h20 41.i17 42.k18 43.k16 44.m17 45.t18 46.m6 47.n13

(though there may be some fiction in that, such as k18.)

Nor does it seem to help retrograde ladder chase:

32.i12 33.i13 34.j17 35.k14 36.m20 37.t18 38.o12 39.j6

I needed to block his 31.h11 peg more directly. H13, h14, and i15 were all possibilities I considered. Maybe i15 would have been better, but as a matter of style, I like the 0-3 gap in that region of the board. For example,

32.h14 33.g13 34.i16 35.i14 36.j14 37.k13 38.l13 39.m12 40.n12

Of course, Pete was not going to let anything that obvious happen. But I couldn't see anything wrong with 32.h14, so I went with it. Ironically, I saw his 33.j12 as a response to the 0-2 defense:

32.h13 33.j12 34.j14 35.l13 36.m15 37.t18 38.m6 39.n13 -- and I lose.

but it came as a surprise when he played in response to my 0-3 defense. At first, I thought |34.l14 should do the trick. But:

|34.l14 35.l13 36.k16 37.m15 38.o12 39.p18 40.m6 41.n17 -- ack! Or,
|34.l14 35.l13 36.m16 37.m15 38.o12 39.p18 40.n18 41.j6 42.m4 43.m7 44.i6 45.h7 -- not good, either!

Closing the gap to avoid the double threat left me vulnerable:

|34.l14 35.l13 36.n15 37.k15 38.k19 39.k17 40.j17 41.i16 42.m20 43.h18

In hindsight, maybe |34.l14 35.l13 36.m17 would have worked?

Anyway, I needed to keep the threat of a connection to J10 and N10 alive, because I could be in big trouble otherwise. For example:

|34.j18 35.p18 36.m6 37.n13

I thought I had found a good answer with |34.k14:

|35.l13 36.m13 37.n12 38.o12, or
|35.n13 36.m13...

Pete's |35.p18 simply ended my threat of going across the bottom, forcing me to defend my top line. I could have gone for 36.m6 directly, but I wanted to get a first-mover's advantage when connecting K14 to J10 or N10, because I was starting to get nervous about it. Following the maxim that your good move is your opponent's good move, I started to look at what would happen if Pete took my m13 spot:

36.m6 37.m13 38.o12 39.l15 ?
36.m6 37.m13 38.m15 39.n11 ?

For a little while I thought L14 might work:
36.m6 37.m13 38.l14 39.l15 40.k12 41.j14 42.j13, or
36.m6 37.m13 38.l14 39.l15 40.k12 41.k13 42.i13

but then I saw:
36.m6 37.m13 38.l14 39.l11 40.o12 41.l15

and that was a disaster in the making.

So it was important to get that first-mover's advantage. I turned to the move I had seen earlier, H8, hoping for an outcome like this:

|37.h7 38.i6 39.f12 40.m13 -- and there's my first-mover's advantage.

But Pete tip-toed thru this minefield perfectly. By |39.h7 I knew he'd get the first-mover's advantage in the crucial battle. My hand was forced.

I was fearing |41.m13, but it's still not obvious, so I still had hope. Even if he played it, I would still put up a fight:

|41.m13 42.l14 43.l11 44.o12 45.l15 46.l19 47.j18 48.k18 49.l17 50.m17 51.h17 52.k16 53.h13 ... giving him many opportunities to blunder, and just maybe I could find a brilliant move, though I'm not sure how.

But then, he surprised me with |41.i14. It's not that Pete didn't see M13, because I asked him about it later, and he said:

"...while I was heading for m13, I had a belief that you could find a way to defeat it unless I had something solid on the left side. Part of this assumption was that I believed I had to threaten a move toward the bottom to make it possible to connect across the middle. Apparently this assumption kept me from looking at |41.m13 right away. Lesson learned! Looking at it now, I see that this assumption was backwards -- I had to threaten to connect across the middle to set up a move on the left side toward the bottom. So, I agree with you: |41.m13 would have won for me."

There wasn't much to think about with |41.i14. I had to block it. It wasn't certain, but at this point I saw no way for Pete to win. As a bonus, the L14 response I was looking at was linked to my |42.j15.

It's worth noting that the presence of my J15 peg made |52.i19 work -- an important variation of that pattern, which would typically be a win for White in the absence of a connection thru the i18-j17 gap from |56.k18.

Part 2 had so many possible variations, I still cannot say who was winning at the end of Part 1.

It was a game well played.

34.l14 35.l13 36.m17 37.m15 38.o12 39.j6 40.q17 41.i17 42.k16 43.h15 44.g12 45.f12 46.j15 47.f14 and it doesn't look like black could have won that way. Thanks for throwing me a bone :-)