Hi Everyone,

I just finished a game against lazydemon, and it featured and exciting turn of events on move 21. Prior to move 21, lazydemon had essentially consolidated the bottom left territory, whereas I had nearly consolidated the right side of the board.

However, lazydemon vacated their territory with an aggressive move: 21. E4-H7 x E4, leaving me an opportunity to invade the bottom left with my D7 Amazon. However, I was concerned that I would be ceding my influence over the top left of the board, and thus opted to seal off the territory in the moves that followed:  22. H3-J1 x F1 and 24. D7-A10 x A7. Lazydemon proceeded to win the game, and, in my view, I was completely lost after move 22.

What are everyone's thoughts on move 21 generally speaking, and do you think that move 22 was a blunder? In hindsight, I think responding with 22. D7-D5 x A5 would have been much stronger, but I'm not sure. Here is the link to the game:

https://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=2178950

Any input would be appreciated. Thank you!

Is this the first “Immortal game of amazons”? I kid I kid, but wow what fascinating moves!

I spend some time looking at this to see if i can come up with any good moves, but i think that Lazy Demon just played this brilliantly.

My biggest takeaway from this game is that you were more concerned about limiting your weakness on the left side of the board and didn't pay attention to thestrengththat you had on the right side of the board. The right side had a lot of unclaimed squares but you had a strong material advantage. In attempts to limit Lazy Demons large left side territory, you lost your material advantage on the right side of the board by moving your amazons to compromising positions. (kinda of scary seeing two amazons in opposite corners.)

Here are some of the moves that I feel like you could have played during the game.

MOVE 22.  I think that the move you played is fine. It's risky but it does accomplish some great threats despite moving to the dangerous corner. However if I was playing as black I would be more worried about two things. First the f4 amazon can easily become trapped and secondly an arrow being shot on D6 would block off the D7 amazon from having any influence on the lower left side of the board. The best way to counter a large territory is by grabbing some of the territory for yourself (lower left). Moving the F4 amazon and shooting an arrow to E7 or G7,alleviates both concerns. Lazy demon would still win more squares on the left side of the board, but you would win more squares on the right side.

MOVE 24you played 24.d7-a10/a7 I really like move 24.F4-F6/F7. Again this separates the board into 2 regions, Left and Right. However now d7-a10/a7 is still a crushing threat. If d7-a10/a7 is countered a move like J1-H3/10 basically gives you the entire right side with very little counter play.  24. d7-a10-g10 is a strong move too for similar reasons.

MOVE 26you played 26.a10-c8/c9.Maybe 26.J1-J5/H3would have better. You cede the smaller top left corner but this basically gives you a 2 vs 1 advantage for the larger right side of the board. You even have tempo after this move as the A10 amazon is still free to move. (A10-B10/G10 is a powerful move). The amazon on G5 doesn't have any “deadly threats” as it must shoot an arrow back on G5 to avoid F4 from escaping.

What are your thoughts on my analysis? P.S. I thought move 21 by lazy demon was excellent! It was the best move that he would have made from that position.

Yep; you're completely right. I think what happened was that I believe the opening didn't go my way, which harmed my assessment of the middle game. In hindsight, I actually think the position was relatively balanced up until moves 19/20 – at which point lazydemon completely outplayed me.

Your alternate suggestions for move 22 are fantastic; I'm not sure which one is stronger, but either move would have been far superior to what I played in the game.

On move 24, F4-F6/F7 might lose by a hair; I briefly counted a possible variation, and I think white ends up with approximately 32, whereas black had approximately 29. That said, I just counted it in my head, and I could be wrong. I'll probably pull up my two player version of Amazons later to run through the variations and see if your suggestion is winning for black / white. A similar idea, however, almost certainly works at an earlier point in the game. Check out this potential move: 20. F4-F5/F4. It achieves a similar goal – consolidating the right side for black, but the crucial difference is that I retain an amazon on C8, which might be sufficiently be able to compromise white's territory in the top left, edging out the victory for black.

Your suggestion for move 26 is also good. I don't remember my rational for playing A10-C8/C9, but I do remember debating between liberating the J1 amazon and the A10 amazon; for some reason I chose the latter. In fact, this may have been my biggest mistake in the game. Although I think black's position is dubious by this point, 26. J1-J5/H3 would certainly have given me a better shot.

Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps at some point a list will be compiled of notable Amazons games / moves, and, personally, I'd include move 21 if I were making such a list. I think it highlights a key strategic element in Amazons that is challenging for most players: don't cling to specific territories without good reason.

Hey guys!

Thanks for the praise, it means a lot coming from players I admire. :)

Just wanted to drop by and say hello, I forgot you were going to post this qwerty. I won't contribute to your analysis this time, but I enjoyed reading both of your thoughts!

I can just share that move 21 was a really nerve-racking move for me at the time. I didn't feel secure that I could win with the left side I had and the D7 amazon felt very threatening to me. I also knew that I could cause a lot of damage to qwerty's territory by invading, it was also my final path available for invasion. I had no idea how it would turn out and I didn't realize at that time that I would need to cut off such a huge part of my territory. This is my favourite game of Amazons so far, such dramatic moves from both of us and it was really satisfying to see that my big gamble was actually paying off.  :)

[game;id:2178950;move:21]