Superior middle game and endgame

…or you could say inferior beginning :)

I usually start very bad in board games, be it go, TwixT or amazons (in hex, chess and dots&boxes I don’t know at all, so it is probably even worse ;-)), but later on I often surprisingly catch up. I recently managed to win so many games I considered lost that it really surprised me (I even seem to have a good chance of getting second place in second TwixT league of 11th TwixT championship (which would mean returning to the first league)).

I seem to have similar problems in beginning stages of go and amazons (prolly as the games are surprisingly similar), I take sure points, but too few of them. Maybe it has to do with my mind and general approach to things – I prefer to take less and to have it sure than to take more and risk, I hate risking. But my cowardish approach pays off in the middle game and even more so in the endgame.

Someone once told me that I play much better go when I play for influence, well, I usually only do that in handicap games, since there I seem to be so much behind from the beginning that it calls for something weird. I hope to try it on a tournament soon, since I have virtually nothing to lose now (I have fallen about as low as possible after that Polish tournament (oooh, didn’t tell you about that? …and I will not tell you :-P)).

This post evolved kind of chaotically while doing several other things, so please forgive me if there are many errors and too few ideas. I am also pretty tired… and tomorrow – cross country skiing – yay. Good night.