Dan is a real good Twixt player. At a certain point I saw no chance in winning the game, but tried to provoke a draw and succeeded:

link

This really doesnt happen too often, so I thought to share it with you. Comments?

I could be wrong (out of practice), but doesn't 40 J23 (or J19) win for black?

I also have a draw, against Klaus. In that game he threw away the win in move 14 (which should have been at L18), as he observed himself.

Sorry new link

Re the Dan-technolion game, I agree with Tasmanian that 40.J23** or J19** was an easy win for Dan.

Re the Klaus-Tasmanian game, it looks like Klaus could have still made a fight as late as move 22 with L9** instead of N13**. For example 22.L9** N12** O7 S8 S4 looks like a close fight. Klaus was assured of a draw along the bottom half of the board, so as long as he continued to make threats along the top, he would have been risking nothing. What did I miss?

Tas & David, you are of course right about 40.f22. My 39.g22 was clearly a trap but far too risky.

Would'nt have 39.J20 also fixed this game for a draw?

I won't claim that you missed anything David. I had just been assuming without analysis that Klaus played optimally after move 14.

techno, you are right that you traded mistakes with Dan on moves 39 and 40. For that matter, 34.M22** was a mistake by Dan. 34.L22** M19* M21* O22 O20* would have won. There are other variations, but 34.L22** looks winning in all cases. Going back earlier in the game, 25.R14* looks like a better idea than L18, just based on positional considerations. When you attack from two different directions like this, you can usually create more threats than your opponent can block.

He he. You told everybody how I manage to draw the game. It's not fair. :D.

Anyway I already told tehnolion at move 44 in the game that F22 was a big mistake.

My bigger mistake was to consider the game won and not paying attention in the finish. Technolion deserves the draw.

and I agree with David with R14. At some point I was afraid of it.

Thanks for your insights, David! I thought long about R14 but wanted have a supporting stone first…

Dan, I didn't know you were also aiming for a draw! :D

Ladies and gentlemen, it took a little time, but now I'm proud to report my very first draw, too. The match started off quite well, but then David played an amazing move which easily annihilated my sophisticated opening. :)

Congrats, Tim! I've never had a draw. This is the first real (non-courtesy) draw since the Dan vs. technolion draw. And it's a good one; I don't see any mistakes.

My big mistake was probably 28.O13*. I should have played P21* first instead. On the right, I threaten both O13* and S22. On the left, I have much stronger threats along the bottom. For example I could have answered G16 with G20. It's not as simple as I describe; maybe white has a way to cover both threats on the left, for example. Or maybe white could have fashioned a “pincer attack” with something in the neighborhood of P23. But I could have answered P23 with Q23, and everything else around there looks blockable on one side or the other.

The master of the draws is back. I managed to make another draw after I managed, magically to get trough Steven's defence.

And I could finish the game so easily with 43.J22 instead of J20. Sometimes I am so blind.

… and the game is 321617 ;-)

wow, 59 moves! Is this a record?

No, I once went to 70 moves against Klaus in game 335681. I could have won it on move 32, but instead I made a grievous error and had to resort to spin control. It seems likely that Alan's database has even longer games.

I think he meant: record for games that end in a draw. In another thread I showed a game that had lasted 221 (!) moves - although it is hard to imagine that this could happen between two stronger players.

70 moves is an extraordinarily long game. Only 22 games were longer, out of all 14760. None of the games longer than 86 moves can be judged a serious game - they had to be chatting it up or something (112: 41069, 117: 260341, 154: 40348, 221: 262993, 248: 45896). The 86-move game that I think was honestly played was 142641, though it was played out to the bitter end. That would have to be the record for the longest game. There was also the 86-move 264785, but it doesn't look like a serious game. There were 2 games with 84 moves, and one of them looks like an honest draw: 240489, between powerrade and Ralph Thomas Bednarczuk. The other 84-move game was more recent: 329992, and that would be the longest honest game that ended in resignation.

my frist draw : http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=430853

game is just finish.

my second I think …

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=418586

I wait for syl to accept draw

I was about to post about game 418586… and then I saw that Brunbrun has already talked about it.

It's my very first draw !

;-)

White might have made a fight on the last move with 56.D16* instead of P20*. but after 56.D16* D19 C18* E21* E19* F19* Black holds the line. Another possibility was 56.O3* R7* W6* T8* V8 W8 and Black breaks through. Or, white could have contested the draw with 56.F12* G12* G10* H10 and white is blocked. So, a draw is correct here.

Thanks David for this complete analysis. I was afraid… before reading your conclusion !