Competitive Azul - Beginner to Master Video Series

[Priptonite]

Finally was able to make the tile manipulation video I've been wanting to make for a long time thanks to the recently released Azul sandbox.

https://youtu.be/DKNFtUgcO6w

[Priptonite]

Short video on a pretty interesting concept (imo): https://youtu.be/II1U7V3HW1E

[Ceaseless]

Are you still looking at comments about your videos? I decided to take a look, and a few things stood out to me in the first episode, though I don't know if they've already been mentioned in the previous pages or not.

[Priptonite]

Always open to feedback! Been almost two years since that particular video though haha

[Ceaseless]

Always open to feedback! Been almost two years since that particular video though haha

I decided to give Azul a bit more focus last December and watched your first video yesterday. It might be a little bit before I catch up to your more modern videos, lol. Figured it would be nice to know while watching other videos if you wanted to hear my thoughts or not. A couple of minor things that caught my eye in this video.

https://youtu.be/c4KViaIsqIU?t=2272 I think red being a forced floor line would have been a neat discussion point for your move, even if you choose to let them fill with white anyways and clog up their row 5 in exchange for not losing points for the time being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4KViaIsqIU&t=2430s The fact you just best of 3ed the whites means they can only take white once, and since it's their only row 2 filler, they're trapped between filling row 5 or row 2. I think this was deserving of being a third stated reason to perform your move, that not only did you fill up reds and make them floor line piece if they wanted to fill up row 5, but if they chose to do so they'd be sacrificing their row 2.

[Priptonite]

Yeah spot on with the reds, I wonder if I would make the same move today or if I would take the whites instead. My game has become a bit more focused on giving opponents negatives than it was when I recorded those.

[Ceaseless]

https://youtu.be/9UOWGcgJhgY?t=937 Why not take the white in the center? It keeps the blues separate and there's no fear about who gets last pick, the blacks have an easy outlet for whoever gets them.

https://youtu.be/9UOWGcgJhgY?t=1020 You give them too little credit. They might prevent you from filling an entire row sounds like a pretty good reason to take the 3 black. Not only did it do that, but it ended up defining your next moves to best of 3 the blacks just to fill row 2. My change to their play would be to play those black in row 3 instead, and grab the 2 blue as soon as possible while staying ready to trash 1 black to kill your row 1.

https://youtu.be/9UOWGcgJhgY?t=2120 You take the 2 white anyways, now they eat 2 black and your choice 3 of 3 blue or yellow, I imagine you'd take the yellow for row 4. This was the answer to avoiding your fatal mistake rather than what you were thinking later on without looking at the board.

I think going over the game would have been better than starting a new one. A review may be a bit slow, but a full game is longer and seeing how you look over your losses sounds like a pretty instructional lesson in itself, adding further depth and diversity to the video than a new game would be. Your description of your loss would have been much more accurate as well.

[Priptonite]

All good comments. One of my goals with the series was to show that you can make plenty of mistakes or subpar plays and still make it to Master. I think you’re helping show that

[Ceaseless]

All good comments. One of my goals with the series was to show that you can make plenty of mistakes or subpar plays and still make it to Master. I think you’re helping show that

Reviewing my own games is a good way to crush my ego no matter how high up the ladder I climb in whatever game I'm playing, and that's even while blinded by the natural personal bias of looking at my own moves. It's much easier to find the flaws when you're looking at someone else's games where such a bias doesn't kick in. But we all definitely make plenty of mistakes, lol, even at the top.

[Ceaseless]

https://youtu.be/epDXT6YHptE?list=PLG37 ... rX-Q&t=458 Why not throw away the black for 2 more points? You obviously don't want the yellow since it gives you adjanency points now, but between red and black, while you may prefer red for the color since the two score equally for you but red is your row 5 color over row 4 and is centered, is it 2 points better?

https://youtu.be/epDXT6YHptE?list=PLG37 ... X-Q&t=1266 This does not make you pay 1 more for your row 3 white, it reduces your row 3 white from 2 moves to 1. This is because before the whites were already in pairs. You said you spent time thinking about your next move, what was your other candidate move? I had pegged the whites to be all but forced.

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=1673 I would think you'd want to get red in row 5 to continue stalling your floor line issues.

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=1753 You can't fill row 2 blue, so if they take 2 yellow you just lost row 2. The floor line damage to you remains painful even if you lob the main clump to them, which they will shrug off.

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=1940 What did you have in mind when you said open to 5 white?

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=1860 The 2 black play isn't indicative of a column 5 plan. They made their only row 2 adjacency. It's synergetic, but they were always going to fill that 2 black even with no column 5 plans, and this was the best time to do it regardless given the lack of blues. There's a column 5 threat, to be sure, but no indication that they're looking for it yet. From the looks of things, they weren't, and it just happened to fall into place for them, but these were just strong moves that coincidently worked to make a combined threat rather than any intentional coordination.

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=2229 I'm surprised you found the concession surprising. You've killed their structure and have them color butchered, you were going to nuke them off the map. I'm not sure why you thought a 4 point lead was going to give them any sort of fighting chances.

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=2400 Why not 2 yellow from the center in row 2?

https://youtu.be/XMEMTsqher0?t=2784 Why not 1 red from the factory? I'd probably put it in row 3, but floor lining is probably fine too. Their need for blacks and yellows mean they'll probably leave you the red 2, they don't have that much merit in trying to hit you there compared to the pain of missing those.