Interesting game.  Good job, Shalev :)

To check

[game;id:1977716]

It looks like the play was forced after move 19 …

I've not analyzed in deep, but my first impression is that maybe error is 32 c12? why not 32 d11?

From my experience, Daniel plays very fast here on LG. Maybe he should play slower!

Ehehe, 32 d12 is no improvement at all. Maybe 32 j10? :)

Ok, 32 j10 is bullshit too. I better shut up! :)

Could someone quickly analyze first 15-20 moves? It looks random to me…

Well, d5 and d7 could potentially be wrong. I don't like j11 either. Everything else is standard play. You want us to teach you standard play? Actually the simplest thing is to simply copy it in your games and understand it later.

The basic idea of “standard play” is to expand the “influence” of your edges (or, from a defensive point of view, to curtail the “influence” of the edges of your opponent). This is how I explain the fact that we always play at the diagonals in the beginning.

Any thoughts about move 6. i5? I thought such a move feels weak given 7. j4, but the k2 and j4 stones ended up being harder to use than I expected. Is i5 followed by j4 good for white, or good for black? Or is it the correct joseki, the best both players can hope for?

Lazy thanks for a very elegant explanation of the idea of standard play at hex.

So the reason 32. C12 looks wrong is because there is no move here, shalev has expanded his influence to cover the whole board.

Force majeure:As lazyplayer says, you want to increase the influence of your own edges and decrease the influence of your opponent's. Corner moves are popular in the opening because they can accomplish both goals simultaneously. Some popular corner openings for Black are c4 and d5 in the acute corner and j4 and i5 in the obtuse corner. Moves 2, 3, 6 and 10 are all examples of these. It generally a good idea to occupy one corner on each of your two edges: after move 3 Black has corners on both of his edges, and with move 6 White has a corner on each of his two edges. Once a player takes a corner another player may attempt to “invade” that corner which kicks off a corner fight. There are a few “standard” approaches to corner fights, players here often call them “josekis,” in reference to a similar concept in Go. Moves 4 and 5 are an example, as are 7 and 8. There are numerous josekis, study the games of the top players to see the most common ones. Corners can support each other: after Black 9, White responds with 10 in the acute corner. This actually strengthens the influence of e9 since it can escape ladders that may develop from that corner. This triggers a fight over the whole left edge (moves 11 through 16). This is followed by a fight over the right edge (moves 17-24). Black is fully aware he can't separate j6 from the edge, the goal is to get the stones on l8 and j7 to strengthen his position. As you can see in the rest of the game these early fights for influence prove pivotal in the result.

Great explanation HappyHippo, ever thought about doing a video à la Michael Redmond: https://www.youtube.com/user/USGOWeb/videos ?

shalev, i think 6 i5 followed by 7 j4 is good for black, but to be honest, white position feels almost impossible already after j11. Anyway it could be good later on, but i think white should not play top-right area for some time until the rest of the board has settled somewhat…

I'm yet to look at this game more carefully but it's stunning nobody mentioned 12.d7 so far. The most dubious IMO, even if white already lost

I thought 12.d7 looked a little unusual, how about 12.f5…

Ok, being more specific I don't see how move 4 helps white (doesn't it simply strenthen black without much compensation?) and how 9 contributes to black's position (however this time I see some ajis to use later on). Thanks!

Move 4 is almost surely bad. Move 9 is standard and you can see it in two ways. You can see it as a counter to e9. You can also see it as black making optimal use of the bottom side of the board. B10 and the two stones on the bottom-right prevent white B11, B12, C11.

Frankly after B10 it's already time to resign for white. Hex is really a “drastic” game.

On the topic of move 4, what are people's thoughts on responding to j9 with i10, like this? I see it somewhat frequently (Daniel seems to play it a lot) but the continuations don't seem particularly good for White, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

Since 3 months, I played via mobile phone. Unfortunately I don't have any time to analyze my games. However, hex is one of my biggest passion, so I continue playing.