Day 6

Played two more games today. I started feeling sick while I was at work - got a runny nose, started feeling a little run down. As a result, I didn't want to stay up too late tonight to play StarCraft II. 
 
The first game, I was Terran. My opponent was Protoss. I think I'm getting the hang of the TvP matchup, but I still have problems with the reverse. We were at adjacent spots on Lost Temple, so I thought it was going to be a rush game. I only have the medivac build order, which I usually try to drop. The medivacs are still useful, though, even when you don't drop. I forgot to make ghosts in this game, though. I think I did a better job with macro than my opponent did. For a while, I only had two barracks, a factory, and a starport, but I was pushing out more units than he was. He had a lot more production facilities - seven gateways and two robotics facilities, but I don't think he had the resources to constantly build from both. As a result, our armies were about equal. 
 
I pushed with what I had once stim and the +1 weapons upgrade finished. I didn't pick that time in particular, but it just felt like I had enough units and enough medivacs. During our first encounter, I saw that he had collossi. I was in trouble. I stimmed and then target fired the collossi. I think I lucked out, because he mis-microed and put forcefields in between my units and his. His zealots were effectively blocked off from attacking my units. I managed to pick them off while still target firing the collossi. Both of them went down, but I started getting heavy losses from his stalkers. I turned away from the battle to make more units, and then switched back to the attack. Most of my units were gone, so I abandoned some of my marines and marauders, picked up what I could, and flew back to my base. 
 
Before I started my second push, I started making a lot more vikings for air cover. I figured the six medivacs I had were enough for a medium-sized army, so I wanted something that could take care of the collossi. I need to remember to make ghosts, too. They probably would have helped. At any rate, with the air cover from the vikings, it was relatively easy to pick off the collossi and march into his base. I won. My opponent was in 58th Silver division. 
 
The second game I played was much harder. I was Protoss, and my opponent was Zerg. We were on either sides of Delta Quadrant. When I put down the first pylon, I wasn't sure whether or not to wall off. I decided not to. I didn't have a good reason. When my scouting probe found him, he already had a spawning pool. I started pumping out zealots because I feared a speedling rush. Zerglings with the metabolic boost can wreck havoc on your economy by taking out a lot of probe if they get through your defenses. I actually walled off my ramp with zealots that were positioned side-by-side. I ordered them to hold position so they wouldn't break ranks. I didn't think this was a big deal, but it really eliminated a lot of his scouting in the early to middle game. 
 
Besides trying to expand to a second base, I also warped in a forge and started upgrading my units. I upgraded weapons once and armor twice. The attack upgrade is good because my zealots will kill zerglings in two hits instead of three, and that can make a big difference in battles. I also warped in a robotics facility. My primary purpose was to get a couple observers, but I thought it might be useful to have collossi as well.  
 
While I was able to take my natural expansion at the back of my base, I had a problems securing the one in front of my main base. Every time I'd start warping in a nexus there, he would sweep in with an army of zerglings and take it out. After I made my two observers, I warped in two immortals. I decided it was time to make collosus. When I finally had both robotics facilities up and running, as well as the six warpgates (off two bases) I was running out of money when everything was producing units. This is a bad sign. My main base was already running out of minerals. I saw that he had an army in the center of the map. It looked small, so I attacked it.  
 
It turned out it wasn't as small as I thought. While I was able to kill a lot of his units, I though my army was faring badly in the battle. I switched back to my main base to start warping in reinforcements. I was running low on money, and I couldn't build enough units. However, when I switched back to the battle, things were evening out. My zealots had all died, but my stalkers and immortals were killing off his roaches and hydralisks. At the end of the battle, I had won, with eight stalkers remaining. The weapons and armor upgrades probably turned the tide of the battle. Inside of pushing my luck, I retreated to my base, warped in more zealots, and attempted to secure the second expansion. 
 
Again, he attacked with zerglings. I was able to hold it off. My zealots were slaughtering his zerglings, along with the two collossi that finished warping in. I also had a stargate, and I was harassing him with a void ray and a phoenix. I had enough gas that I probably could have won decisively if I was constantly producing out of the stargate as well, but I sort of forgot about it. 
 
My second push went a lot better. The mix of zealots, stalkers, and collossi mowed down most of the army that he tried to attack with. I had a sentry as well, but I didn't use its guardian shield or forcefields. I probably need to work on controlling that better, too. Still, the army was too much for him to handle. I walked into his base with minimal losses, and he surrendered.  This game was probably the hardest I played in a while. Recently, most of my games felt like I was way ahead. This was the first game in a while where I felt like I was back on my heels. I thought I was lucky that he didn't attack after that first battle.
 
I looked at the replay afterwards. It turned out that he didn't have as many workers as I did. I had around 30 probes while he had around 20 drones. He built more drones later, and I forgot to keeping building probes, so he started catching up. However, I think that was the difference that gave me a better economy. I don't think I macroed as well as I could have this game, since I wasn't always building probes and my production facilities were sometimes idle. I also probably could have made better use of my chrono boost. 
 
I think the better economy and the weapons upgrades were the keys to winning the game. My opponent was 19th in Gold division. I have now won 11 straight games.