Welcome to Oograh Boike's unofficial Thud!®-page.
Interesting games
Of course you're familiar with the regular games page. On this page you'll find games of interest, because they were exciting to watch or play, or you might learn something from them.
Scheibenwelt Tournament 2007 Finals
The Finals of the German Scheibenwelt Tournament were very interesting. First half (Ercharmion vs Vetinari) was a good game, and things were looking good for Vetinari. But in second half, when pressure was building, Vetinari made a regretful mistake. It cost him his Thudmeistership. Two equally matched players, but Ercharmion turned out to have the stronger nerves. Congratulations to Ercharmion for his SW Thudmeistership 2007, and a big "thumbs up" to Vetinari. Well done, both of you.
Two dwarf blocks
Without doubt both Marc Boeren (or Mc as he is called nowadays) and Palm are two of the best players around. Any one of their games is a joy to see and/or play. Check out this game where Marc is dwarfs versus Palm, and where he shows you that two battle-fronts is a possibility after all, if you're a skilled enough player.
A very good end game
Another game of interest is one I played live online, with SaneAlex. A regular game of no particular interest until I thought it was nearly over. It was then that Sanealex came up with an absolutely brilliant endgame, that cost me two trolls (although on retrospect it could've been only one). Exclusively for the highlights page, a Thudboard savegame version can be found here. It was dwarf moves 24 and 30 that impressed me the most.
Invalid moves?
This one was brought to my attention in july 2006 because there was some doubt on the scoring. I decided to replay the game from forum. That's when I found out that the adagium "Invalid moves are valid too, as long as your opponent doesn't spot them" is true. Mc posted that somewhere in forum, and he thinks he's quoting Trevor, if his memory serves him right.
Try to spot the illegal move Magrat inadvertantly made, and Ponder missed, in this game of Magrat vs Ponder (2).
To set things right, Ponder inadvertantly managed to make an illegal move as well in the second half, which Magrat missed in turn. Try if you can spot it.
This is NO competition, just something you might learn from! If you can spot the moves, please don't spoil it for other players by posting about it in forum. Thx!
Dwarfmastering and "forking"
Another game was brought to my attention by SANEAlex, Trolls in this one against Dwarves are Small. He was highly impressed by DaS' dwarfmastering, and so was I. Please note that they stopped at a strange point in the game, where DaS has two Trolls forked. This is because their games had become out of sync. Pity, I would've liked to know what became of the rest of that half.
The Poons Offensive
Here's a set of openings with the Poons Offensive, discussed here and played here in forum. Windle Poons came up with a Troll opening, and Dearmer took the challenge of trying to find a counter for it. Ponder joined the discussion.
All saves are just a couple of moves, they were trying to discuss openings, no more. So here are Dearmer vs Ponder, and Dearmer vs Windle Poons. Enjoy!
The Mazur Gambit; and a Dwarf Block next to the Stone
"Mazur vs Magrat (1)" was brought to my attention by Mazur. I liked the games, they were very interesting. The first half, Magrat - Mazur, showed something I thought was impossible: a living and thriving dwarf block in the middle of the board, next to the stone!
The second half, Mazur vs Magrat, is the first time (on record) for the Mazur Gambit, a very daring but interesting first move --followed by a second obviously, it's the combination that does it. Mazur tried this in his first ever (online) game which was with yours truly. I told Palm about it later, and he was impressed (as was I), and he's still thinking about how to perfect it. So you'd better study this! ;-)
If you see or know of a game that should be highlighted on this page, please let me know. Thanks for your interest.
