Victory!

I won! I won! I finally won on a large board! 23.5 - 31. 19x19, even match, against He Who Tells Stories.

We started by claiming the top and bottom halves of the board. I invaded his upper right 3-3 point and lived with 3 eyes. He had a long wall containing my group. A bit later, I extended a different group into a counter-wall along the outside of his, suffocating it. Corner for me.

Later, he got a little base in along the bottom with only one eye and struggled to extend it out into the middle. I stopped trying to kill it too quickly. There was a point in the game where I could have prevented the second eye shape, but didn't, because I was more concerned about connecting my groups to contain his sprawl, rather than trying to kill his whole group.

Bottom left and right corners were basically life and death puzzles. He died on the left and lived on the right (just barely).

Upper right irritated me to no end. He had a lot of space, well defended, and there just wasn't room for me to invade or reduce effectively. That didn't keep me from trying (a lot), which was either valiant or stupid, depending on your outlook.

I think he was surprised that I'd won when we counted out at the end. For one thing, he had several dead groups still on the board, which makes for a muddy quick-read. For another, it was not that long ago that he was still offering me a handicap. Yay! Progress!

Good game, He Who Tells Stories. :)