I won't lie, I was scared going into our match. I had just witnessed what you did to my friend (and higher rated player) hakha the round before! Nonetheless it was a great game and I won't spoil the result for anyone reading the comments (it was the 2nd game). That's so interesting what you said about the first round. It's true, I do value completing the 3rd row in particular very highly. I hadn't considered that I may have been overvaluing that aspect of the game. Something I am going to improve on now that it's been pointed out, thank you. Round 4 I believe my thinking was I wanted you to complete the white in row 1 so I would have an easier time getting them for my row 1 and 2 in the last round. I was extremely greedy putting the blues in row 5! Not good Sam. Well done on your tournament result, I look forward to watching the rest of the games and learning later.
This is awesome Azul content which is sorely needed. Thank you for taking increasingly more time to break away from Carcassonne (a game I also love) to record Azul strategy. It's been fascinating.
Thank you so much. Your commentary is so helpful, and now I’m able to win most games. I mostly play on the on the “Azee” platform. But will switch to bga time to time. 😊 maybe I’ll give carcassone a try too with your videos!
Alexy, thank you so much for posting these videos. It has been a goal of mine to reach a 500 ELO. I watched all of your previous Azul videos and about an hour of this one. I've been stuck between 350 - 400. I just got to 445 today. I hope I will reach 500 someday. Thank you for being so open to teach and share your knowledge of the game.
amazing video, incredibly useful commentary. I will watch any Azul content you produce. I will now check out the Carcassonne content as well. Thank YOU!
55:00 take the reds instead of blue and it's a 4 point swing. In the last game maybe placing 2 whites in row 5 is incorrect with 7 out. He was able to perfectly counter it by taking the other 5 for his row 2 and 3. It probably works vs most players but not the best ones.
Thanks for pointing it out! I got too complacent there. Me not taking the reds was a massive blunder. As for the 2 whites in the bottom row, I need 6/13 whites to complete my setup (3 for the bottom + 2+1 for the top two rows), which is less than half, so it should be doable in most runouts. However, there was a potentially stronger move in round 1 which I was considering during the game but decided not to play: taking two whites instead of two reds for my second row. This would break adjacency for both me and my opponent, but bring me much closer towards completing my game goal for whites. Now I would need only 4 out of the 13 remaining whites.
Thank you for such a good and complete analysis of many games. I absolutely love them! Being in the low 300s Elo, I still have a lot to learn! Don't give up, you are only a few points below QueenDong in current Arena!
It was just very unfortunate that only one of us could make it to the quarterfinals, but at least we got to play a very intense game! Despite the more or less awkward look of my 1st round, I absolutely love to play games were maximizing adjacency bonus is key and it is my favorite way to play the game, so I knew I might be able to make some nice combos in order to build my board efficiently :P Looking again at the 4th round, I feel like I was to impatient to take the 1 gold for my 1st row. It has not a move of the highest priority and the golds were not of the most valuable tiles for you to take. So I would have been better of taking a white, completing my 3rd row so that I would get full value when I completed the 4th row, still beeing 1st player going in to round 5 AND having the 3rd row open for the final round meant that I could place the blues or golds that I had to play arround on round 5! And your find at the end of round 4 was indeed very well played, with that 4-point payoff on round 5! Despite losing by 1 point, it has a very fun game to play and at least I lost my quarterfinals spot to the 2nd place finisher ;)
During the game I didn't think you did anything wrong by taking a single gold, but I agree now that if you complete your third row in round 4, I am toast! I would have probably made you discard two golds or mayyyybe get or threaten to get three blues in my third row if you do that, but even then it does seem that prioritizing the single white was stronger.
Thanks, I missed that one! You're right, taking the one white of the second row is much better, because then my opponent is forced to either discard two additional blues or just give me complete color.
It was no doubt the best play for him to put away these 3 yellows at the beginning. First of all he didn't lose 3 points, he lost 2 points due to him already losing 1 to the starting tile, and second of all, you both needed 1 and 2 yellow in the first 2 lines the round right after, so he would have the 5th line filled for atleast 1 and probably 2 more rounds for a most likely worthless tile.
The start of round 4 1:50:20 in the last game...I wonder if you would've taken the one red on the plate with three blue if you could have gotten the 1st player?
I won't lie, I was scared going into our match. I had just witnessed what you did to my friend (and higher rated player) hakha the round before! Nonetheless it was a great game and I won't spoil the result for anyone reading the comments (it was the 2nd game).
That's so interesting what you said about the first round. It's true, I do value completing the 3rd row in particular very highly. I hadn't considered that I may have been overvaluing that aspect of the game. Something I am going to improve on now that it's been pointed out, thank you.
Round 4 I believe my thinking was I wanted you to complete the white in row 1 so I would have an easier time getting them for my row 1 and 2 in the last round. I was extremely greedy putting the blues in row 5! Not good Sam.
Well done on your tournament result, I look forward to watching the rest of the games and learning later.
It's something I also value, so good to see other viewpoints.
This is awesome Azul content which is sorely needed. Thank you for taking increasingly more time to break away from Carcassonne (a game I also love) to record Azul strategy. It's been fascinating.
Thank you so much. Your commentary is so helpful, and now I’m able to win most games. I mostly play on the on the “Azee” platform. But will switch to bga time to time. 😊 maybe I’ll give carcassone a try too with your videos!
Alexy, thank you so much for posting these videos. It has been a goal of mine to reach a 500 ELO. I watched all of your previous Azul videos and about an hour of this one. I've been stuck between 350 - 400. I just got to 445 today. I hope I will reach 500 someday. Thank you for being so open to teach and share your knowledge of the game.
Good luck with getting to 500, you can do it!
amazing video, incredibly useful commentary. I will watch any Azul content you produce. I will now check out the Carcassonne content as well. Thank YOU!
55:00 take the reds instead of blue and it's a 4 point swing. In the last game maybe placing 2 whites in row 5 is incorrect with 7 out. He was able to perfectly counter it by taking the other 5 for his row 2 and 3. It probably works vs most players but not the best ones.
Thanks for pointing it out! I got too complacent there. Me not taking the reds was a massive blunder. As for the 2 whites in the bottom row, I need 6/13 whites to complete my setup (3 for the bottom + 2+1 for the top two rows), which is less than half, so it should be doable in most runouts. However, there was a potentially stronger move in round 1 which I was considering during the game but decided not to play: taking two whites instead of two reds for my second row. This would break adjacency for both me and my opponent, but bring me much closer towards completing my game goal for whites. Now I would need only 4 out of the 13 remaining whites.
Thank you for such a good and complete analysis of many games. I absolutely love them! Being in the low 300s Elo, I still have a lot to learn! Don't give up, you are only a few points below QueenDong in current Arena!
Great video, congratulations 🎉
Thank you!
great result, congrats
It was just very unfortunate that only one of us could make it to the quarterfinals, but at least we got to play a very intense game!
Despite the more or less awkward look of my 1st round, I absolutely love to play games were maximizing adjacency bonus is key and it is my favorite way to play the game, so I knew I might be able to make some nice combos in order to build my board efficiently :P
Looking again at the 4th round, I feel like I was to impatient to take the 1 gold for my 1st row. It has not a move of the highest priority and the golds were not of the most valuable tiles for you to take. So I would have been better of taking a white, completing my 3rd row so that I would get full value when I completed the 4th row, still beeing 1st player going in to round 5 AND having the 3rd row open for the final round meant that I could place the blues or golds that I had to play arround on round 5! And your find at the end of round 4 was indeed very well played, with that 4-point payoff on round 5!
Despite losing by 1 point, it has a very fun game to play and at least I lost my quarterfinals spot to the 2nd place finisher ;)
During the game I didn't think you did anything wrong by taking a single gold, but I agree now that if you complete your third row in round 4, I am toast! I would have probably made you discard two golds or mayyyybe get or threaten to get three blues in my third row if you do that, but even then it does seem that prioritizing the single white was stronger.
Subbed. Awesome Azul content. I admit i would have gone for two blues in row three first turn
Is there a way to watch the full games with a premium account?
Well done 🙂
Thanks!
46:45 what about taking one white, that way threatening both the 2nd row and complete color
Thanks, I missed that one! You're right, taking the one white of the second row is much better, because then my opponent is forced to either discard two additional blues or just give me complete color.
It was no doubt the best play for him to put away these 3 yellows at the beginning. First of all he didn't lose 3 points, he lost 2 points due to him already losing 1 to the starting tile, and second of all, you both needed 1 and 2 yellow in the first 2 lines the round right after, so he would have the 5th line filled for atleast 1 and probably 2 more rounds for a most likely worthless tile.
The start of round 4 1:50:20 in the last game...I wonder if you would've taken the one red on the plate with three blue if you could have gotten the 1st player?
Then my opponent takes two whites right then and there, and the 1st player tile won't help me anymore!