Grisk's Gaming Golb (Friday 3/25/2011)

I had a surprisingly good game this afternoon against a top rated bronze (yeah, not much, but I'm IN bronze right now (35th or something in my division) so he (1 in his division) should have been better than me.

Neither of us all-in'd and it became a really great macro game in which my practice really came out! Instead of doing my usual two replays, I'm actually going to try to analyze this one in depth.

This is something I haven't really been trying to work on too much, but I have spent some time thinking about it, simply so I can walk into a game with a general game-plan and do something other than respond to what my opponent does. I don't like the idea of a "build order" because it becomes something that is really inflexible. I like to use a specific opening, but then just follow loose "goals" for the mid/late game. As I practice, this has actually (I think) helped me a lot against my "instruction manual bronze" peers. That said, here is the general idea I like to follow

Early:
+ Show Spoiler +

Mid/late:
+ Show Spoiler +

As you can see, it is not a particularly refined build, more of a work in progress, but I've seen some great success with it so far!

I went into this game thinking roach/ling into broodlord/ling.

I opened up with a gas/pool into a late expo. I was agressive with my first few lings but pulled back once I saw he wasn't four-gating me. I got a late ling speed and roach warred with my expo and started being defensive, massing roaches/lings.

He pushed me at my natural with several gateway units and a few colossi (that is an awful word to spell, btw). I responded (once I had repelled the attack) by getting a few mutas to harass. It wasn't particularly effective, but it did help a bit.

Protos attacked again, this time expanding toward me. I repelled him again and took the very base he was trying to expand to. Unfortunately, I had some bad overlord placement and he supply blocked me. At this point, I realized that he has a lot of sentries and I need to lock down his mobility. I respond to his colossi by getting some Corruptors and try to lock him down with Infestors.

This works fairly well and after some back and forth, the GG's out

My play wasn't without faults. I realized eventually that I wasn't going to get to Brood Lord/ling and I chose to get upgrades for my Roaches after that. Unfortunately, I had a lot of time spent idle on my Evo chambers, and plenty of money to be researching upgrades. I also could have taken my natural sooner and I should have taken the gold after taking the mid.

Other than usual mistakes I need to work on (not tapping enough, queen energy got high eventually, should have spread creep harder) I actually played pretty well, and I've been doing a much better job on my macro. Hopefully I will soon hit top 8 or so in Bronze (short term goal of mine).

I have been considdering starting streaming my notes instead of writing them into blogs here on TL. Would any of you be interested in listening to me live? I am not particularly fond of the idea, but it was something that had occurred to me. What do you guys think?