Analysis: Tak Open Finals R1: applemonkeyman vs SultanPepper (1/2)

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

The next match in the Tak Open finals that I'll be looking at is the first game between applemonkeyman (white) and SultanPepper (black):

Analysis: Tak Open Finals R1: Gerrek v Simmon (2/2)

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

The next game in this series is the second in the match between Simmon and Gerrek, this time with Gerrek as white and Simmon as black:

Analysis: Tak Open Finals R1: Simmon vs Gerrek (1/2)

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

The number of games in the tournament is quite massive, so with the current state of the tournament, I am shifting focus to comment the Finals matches. Granted, this still will wind up with 14 matches (for 28 games) to comment, which is still quite a bit. As such, if anyone wants to pitch in their own comments, feel free to get in contact with me and I'll set you up with a game not currently being processed.

To kick this off, I will be looking at the first game between Simmon (white) and Gerrek (black):

Analysis: Open Tournament A: Simmon v. Maron

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

To continue my series of analysis of games from the Open Tournament, I want to move onto the second game between Simmon and maron, with Simmon as white and maron as black. (Note: While it is important to consider the context of the game in the match, I am analyzing this and other second games in of their own merit and play).

Analysis: Open Tournament A: ts52 vs. Simmon

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

In this post, I am continuing my analysis of varied games from the Open Tournament. As there are a lot of games to look at and each one may take a fair bit of time to analyze, I will continue to update as I can, but it may be a while before I get into any particular game. I may also collaborate with others to help with this task. 

One final note: In the course of (all) my analysis, I am using a tool I designed to help delve into particular lines and variations: https://github.com/nqeron/TakAnalysis. For the moment, the functionality to attempt to annotate moves is a bit weird, so I'm primarily using it to ask TakticianBot for its move recommendations. For more details on how either of these work, feel free to send me an e-mail.

With that note, I'd like to delve into the next game:

Analysis: Open Tournament, A: nqeron v. Simmon

Note: The analysis and positions described are for the 6x6 game. Extend the principles and ideas to the 5x5 and the 8x8 at your own risk...

Last month held the first ever online Tak tournament, the Tak Strategy Summer Invitational Tournament. In the wake of this, a more recent tournament has arrived, dubbed the Open Tournament. In contrast to the previous tournament, the pool of participants was open to any participants (though restricted to 16 total). In addition, whereas the summer invitational was scheduled with a live stream following - along with commentary - this tournament is schedule-free and none of the games have been commented on - in any form. Due to this absence of commentary, so far, I thought I would offer some of my own insights into the games of the tournament.

Before starting, however, a few things should be clear. My analysis is not intended as an end-all and be-all of analysis. Rather, it is intended to be a jumping off point - my own subjective evaluation, subject to scrutiny, criticism, and input from other experienced players. In the same regard, it is not intended to be complete. There is a lot that could be said about specific games and the strategies or possible lines - too much to be covered in individual analysis pieces. For the sake of brevity, and to highlight the more interesting moves, I probably won't discuss every position or idea. Where there are interesting ideas that fall out of scope, I will attempt to delve into them in more in-depth posts.

Finally, note that all the games will be oriented to the a1 and lower right triangle, using the idea of collapsing board symmetries. (As a result, while the games will be identical, the PTNs used here and those listed in the archive may have different orientations).

Without further ado, let's delve into the first game that I'll be looking at:

Strategy: Negative Placement

Usually, in the game of Tak it is most beneficial to be laying flats. There are cases, however, when placing a piece can make a position worse. I encountered this recently in a game I was testing my mettle against a bot: ditaktic v. TakticianBot