Okay, this game actually was the third game I observed between 1st~Kakaru and [SGO]Spok, but the second game was too one sided. Enough talk and let's get onto the game! There were also two other observers besides me, namely otherID & grimling.

The Arena :Lost Temple.
1st~Kakaru randomed to White Zerg at 9:00.
[SGO]Spok randomed to Red Toss at 12:00.

Kakaru immediately sent his overlord to the 6:00 main for scouting purposes. Spok built a pylon on 8 and used that probe to scout. Unfortunately for him, he sent it to the 3 o' clock main, wasting valuable scouting and harassing time. Kakaru built an overlord at 8, followed by a hatchery at his natural and a Spawning Pool on 13. By this time, Spok has already built a pylon and was starting an early Cybernetics Core. Kakaru, however continued to build another hatchery on his ramp once he reached 14 supply. (to prevent Zealots from getting easy access to his main.)

Suddenly, Kakaru said :

<1st~Kakaru> omg what did i build an extractor for
<1st~Kakaru> we were talking about zvz
<1st~Kakaru> so i started doing zvz build
<grimling> oh LOL

Well, this was definitely a setback for Kakaru. Spok was already attacking Kakaru's hatchery at natural with 2 zealots and the scouting probe when Kakaru hatched 8 lings, 6 from his main and 2 from his expansion.

Kakaru lost 3 zerglings, while Spok lost a zealot and a probe. He wisely retreated the remaining zealot for defense. Kakaru continued to macro, building yet another hatchery in his main while frequently massing drones. Spok, however, now had a total of 2 gateways and had already finished warping in a Citadel of Adun and continued teching to templar. But which type of Templar will it be?

Once Kakaru has a good number of drones at his expansion, he sent zerglings to scout. He sent two; one to detect any incoming attacks, and another a screen behind from that one. This is because good players frequently patrol units just outside their base. Kakaru did this to ensure that if the first zergling died, his second would still give valuable info. He then proceeded to upgrade the hatchery in his main to a Lair, and subsequently built a Hydralisk Den.

Both sides play defensive for a while. Suddenly, the cease fire is broken when Kakaru's 2 scouting lings spilled blood. What was Spok up to now? Well, let as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words :

Spok realizes that Dark Templar are next to useless for assaulting a Zerg, (because of overlords) and "contains" the Zerg for a short while with his DT. The overlord that he was attacking managed to escape the dragoon's clutches, with 8 life left. Kakaru, ignoring these petty attacks, pumps hydras from 4 hatcheries. Kakaru's Lair completes and I think he researched overlord speed immediately after.

When Spok's Nexus finished warping in, he maynards around 8 probes to his expansion, while adding a Forge back in his main for two purposes. One is to be able to build cannons for detection against lurkers, and to upgrade his attack to fight zerglings cost effectively. He also adds two more gateways. Kakaru, thinking of the same thing, builds two Evolution Chambers.

Realizing the time is ripe for an attack, Kakaru first sends a scout zergling. This zergling is killed before providing any really useful information. However, Kakaru presses on the attack with around 24 hydras and overlords with the speed upgrade. What follows is a very, very, bloody battle.

However, this turn of events does not even falter Kakaru. Using 12 hydras that he newly hatched during the course of the battle, he attacks yet again along with the survivors of the previous battle. Again, this attack is thwarted by Psi Storm.

During this epic battle, Kakaru and Spok both send peons to expand, at the 6 o' clock and the 3 o' clock mains respectively. Spok placed a Dark Templar at the 3 o' clock main just for occasions like this, however, and forces Kakaru to cancel the hatchery. Spok then warps in a nexus at 3.

Meanwhile, Kakaru once again builds his forces and now has 24 hydras and 3 lurkers. After that, Kakaru proceeds to execute an EXTREMELY gosu attack, which I will describe using the minimap here. (read in this order : upleft, bottomleft, upright.) Pictures won't do this well pulled off strategy justice. The upgrades up to this point :

Hydras : 1/1 (+1 attack, +1 carapace with speed and range)
Zealots : 0/0/1 (+1 attack with speed)

Let me elaborate more on this. Kakaru drops 2 lurkers into Spok's main, causing him to transfer them to his natural. Kakaru then drops another lurker into Spok's natural, killing his probes that were transfered. Meanwhile, Kakaru sends 12 hydras to take care of the expansion on the right. This effectively causes Spok's economy to crumble into pieces.

However, storms annihilated the 2 lurkers in Spok's main (but not the one at his natural). Then, Spok moved out his massive army (20+ zealots with high templar and goon support) to try to prevent his secret expansion from falling down. Unfortunately, Kakaru's hydras intercepted this and managed to stall Spok's units from saving the expansion on time.

After killing the hydras, Spok decided to go on the offense. He attack moved his troops to Kakaru's natural. Kakaru tried to do a pincer attack, using his new hydras and calling back his hydras from the 3 o' clock main. Kakaru left 2 hydras at the 3 o' clock main to avoid Spok from expanding there naked. His pincer attack was not successful as a single storm wiped out all the reinforcements. Kakaru didn't give up, and continued to pump hydras and barely managed to fend off Spok's attack. Spok retreated his zealots to his choke. He now had a good number of probes back online.

Kakaru continued to show his skill at multitasking. Sometime during the last battle, he morphed yet another lurker. Using an overlord, he bypasses the defenses at Spok's choke (Spok had mostly zealot and templar) and drops a lurker in Spok's main yet again. This lurker too kills a number of probes before dying to storm. Kakaru then expanded twice, at his mineral only and at 6. The DT there was long gone.

Now, a very interesting thing happened. Kakaru loaded up 12 hydras into overlords, and sent them to drop deep inside Spok's main. At the same time, Spok patrolled 18 zealots, 3 High Templar and a couple of Dark Templar into Kakaru's main. Both attacks were highly successful. Spok made good use of storm, killed all the defenders, managed to kill a good number of drones, and kill Kakaru's natural expansion. After running out of storm, he morphed 2 high Templar into an archon and started beating up on Kakaru's mineral only.

Kakaru, on the other hand, took out a couple of cannons in Spok's main before attacking the Nexus there. Even after the hydras were stormed, he still pressed on and managed to raze the Nexus before troops from Spok's choke killed them off.

Kakaru was now in deep trouble. His main had just been mined out, his hatchery at his natural is gone, AND his mineral only is being attacked by an archon. Spok however, was mining heavily from his natural. Kakaru did what any sane person will do : he transfered all his drones to the expansion at 3. Spok saw this and sent 8 zealots and the archon to raze it. His zealots were 0/0/2, while Kakaru's hydras were 2/2. Kakaru only had 7 hydras, 2 morphing sunken colonies and a bunch of drones when the zealots arrived. Using gosu micro, Kakaru trapped the zealots between his drones while the hydras and sunkens attacked them. Even though Kakaru lost a few drones and 6 or so hydras, he still didn't give up. He then built a few drones back in his mineral only (the archon didn't finish killing it) and started mining there again.

Spok was now overconfident. He didn't even had an assimilator at his natural, and thus he just pumped out zealots. After having 9 of them, he attacked again, this time to Kakaru's main. He razed the mineral only this time around. Kakaru used delaying tactics with his hydras and drones so that he could successfully morph a lurker in his main. It was successful; by dancing his hydras and microing his lurkers, he repelled the attack, but his situation was worsening...

NOT. Remember the two hydras he left at 3? Well, Kakaru morphed them into lurkers, and dropped them at Spok's natural which had no cannons near the mineral line. Since he was just pumping zealots and no gas, he couldn't deal with them. The lurkers brought Spok down to only 8 probes, before being stormed. Spok quickly sent 7 zealots and 2 high Templar to attack the 3 o' clock base, but, his Templar got left behind.

Kakaru morphed two hydras at 3 into lurkers, while attacking the templar with hydras from behind. Spok did a mistake that would cost him the game here. Instead and pushing on with his zealots, (he already killed the defending sunkens) maybe killing a number of drones, he retreated them to save his templar. By the time the zealots killed the hydras and came back to destroy the base, the lurkers has already finished morphing and 2 sunkens were also put up. By now, Kakaru was mining from 3 o'clock with full capacity. The attack failed miserably.

Kakaru now had the momentum of the game. Spok, realizing that he had too few probes, and not enough tech and resources to handle the lurker and hydra threat, conceded. Total game time : 26:25. Quite a long BR for a short game, eh? In the end, Spok's score beat Kakaru's.

A Day Later . . .

As always, important text in blue. =)

<1st~Kakaru> what do you want to know
<Sephh> Your zvp build
<1st~Kakaru> 8 ovie
<1st~Kakaru> 12 hatch down the choke to protect both bases
<1st~Kakaru> 13 pool 14 hatch at exp (note: this was not what he did, maybe he changed it because he was against random, and he accidentally built the extractor)
<1st~Kakaru> make 8 lings
<1st~Kakaru> and now
<1st~Kakaru> you have to make a call
<1st~Kakaru> you have 8 lings
<1st~Kakaru> what should u do with them?
<1st~Kakaru> your OLs should have gathered enuf information
<1st~Kakaru> if not scout with lings
<1st~Kakaru> if hes going 2 gate/3 gate zealot rush
<1st~Kakaru> i advise to put up a sunken and make 4th hatch at main
<1st~Kakaru> power drones then power mass lings wtih speed
<Sephh> When do I start my gas?
<1st~Kakaru> start gas when 4th hatch halfway done
<1st~Kakaru> if the protoss is teching to reaver goon
<1st~Kakaru> u should place the 4th hatch at another main spot
<1st~Kakaru> cuz he might cannon your cliff
<1st~Kakaru> from then on get gas a little earlier
<1st~Kakaru> and hydras not too late
<1st~Kakaru> or u can go mutas but i prefer ground
<Sephh> If he early expands?
<1st~Kakaru> once youve done those 8 lings
<1st~Kakaru> you have 2 choices
<1st~Kakaru> dont make any more drones until the exp is razed
<1st~Kakaru> just pump lings and go rape
<1st~Kakaru> or expand twice very fast
<1st~Kakaru> and then make lings quickly
<1st~Kakaru> because him expanding means he cant attack
<1st~Kakaru> often early expanding toss go 5 gate
<1st~Kakaru> this is dangerous
<1st~Kakaru> if you think you can power mad expand twice more fast
<1st~Kakaru> but get lings in time if he goes 5 gate
<1st~Kakaru> you can also drop his main and peon lines with lurkers
<1st~Kakaru> but most of the time ppl will go 4 gate 1 forge
<1st~Kakaru> thats when you expand twice
<Sephh> What about my expands? How do I protect them?
<1st~Kakaru> if you have map control, dont
<1st~Kakaru> but if hes going reavers
<1st~Kakaru> u might wanna get a sunk near peon line
<Sephh> DT/Corsair combo?
<1st~Kakaru> ah yes
<1st~Kakaru> i just figured out the answer today u see =)
<1st~Kakaru> once you make the 8 lings
<1st~Kakaru> attack him and make his zealots down the ramp to surround them
<1st~Kakaru> he expands only when he has dt
<1st~Kakaru> the only threat to you now is corsair
<1st~Kakaru> he might have citadel
<1st~Kakaru> but no dt
<Sephh> thx :)
<1st~Kakaru> np

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