Beat a Master with Game Theory

I will always remember yesterday as the day I beat a Master.

Remember I’m playing as a Diamond ranked Random player. My opponent, a Master ranked Zerg.

The Map comes up, and its a two player.

Without even thinking, my gut told me to 7 pool. However, if you do think about it, it makes perfect sense.

When playing as ZvR, you’re probably going to want to 15 hatch. 15 hatch would be good against T and P. So 66% of the time, it would be the correct thing to do. Only 33% of the time would you fight a zerg. And even then, 15 hatch is often the best opening. It’s only a fraction of the 33% of the time that you would get 7 pooled. So I could reasonably expect my opponent to 15 hatch.

And I 7 pooled. By this point, I’ve had some practice at it. In my earlier days, I did a simple 7 pool.

At 7 supply, spawning pool.

One more drone to bring supply back to 7.

Overload.

@ 100% pool, 3xsets of lings.

That was the old way. Now I have a better build

AT 7 supply, spawning pool.

Two more drones to bring supply to 8.

Overlord.

@ 100% pool, 3xsets of lings.

Continue to make lings until 14 supply

@ 14 supply Queen

Overload

Continue to make lings until you win or call off the attack

The difference between these two builds is subtle. But you can squeeze out an extra drone, while not delaying the attack by more than a couple of seconds. So I had the build down perfect. But I still had to micro a win against a Master.

The first and most important rule to a six pool is, don’t lose your lings. It will be very tempting to simply engage his drones, or allow them to be surrounded. Don’t let this happen. Think of it this way. If his drones ignore you, you can kill them, ftw. If the drones stop mining to attack/surround you, he isn’t making money, while you still are. This is better. The farther you can lure his drones away from the mineral line, the more ahead you’ll get.

But if his micro is perfect, and he never takes his drones far from the mineral patch, you must go for the spawning pool. The point is to destroy the pool, without losing your lings. Since you’ll have a steady stream of lings coming from across the map, you can always retreat, and make another wave once the undamaged lings arrive. Fresh lings should always be at the front lines!

Never try to dps down the natural hatchery. The exception is possibly leaving one or two lings to damage it. But as a rule, it is to be ignored.

The master I beat played perfectly. He never went far from his mineral line. He chased me away from his pool each time I tried to DPS it down. But I finally got his pool, and ran away until the broodlings died. When I returned with a fresh wave of lings, he resigned.

Game Theory and 7 Pool FTW.