My first loss of 2011

I didn't realize it, but I had won all of my games so far this year.  

I played three games today.  
 
The first game I played while my girlfriend was at the spa. I played Zerg against a Protoss opponent on Jungle Basin. It was an interesting game. My opponent was talkative, and even asked what race I was. I told him I was random. He said he wanted me to know what race I was today. I told him I didn't choose one yet. :) I think he was trying to distract me. 
 
I was worried about a cannon rush or cheese like that, but it turned into a normal game. I parked my scouting overlord at the back of his base, and sent my second one to the back of mine. When I was able to scout with a drone, I sent it to his base to look around. I saw that he had two gateways already, so I was worried about a zealot rush. I got the metabolic boost for my zerglings, then I started morphing a roach warren. I was still trying to macro and build an army at the same time, but I think I had too many units. Since I had built up the army, I pushed forward with it to see what he was doing. We fought over the observation towers at the middle of the map. I was doing okay, but there were a lot of stalkers, so my roaches weren't doing that well. I was worried about void rays, so I switched to making hydralisks. It seemed to work okay, but I didn't know if I had enough to bust his base. He skirmished with a small squad of stalkers, but it wasn't enough to do any significant damage. He actually warped in a pylon right in front of my ramp. I'm not sure... did he think I wouldn't see it? 
 
I pushed with a swarm of hydralisks, and was able to overcome the attacking army. When I went to push into the front of his base, I saw it. A collosus. Uh oh. I didn't have any air units, and it would torch my hydralisks if given a chance. I started morphing a spire, but I think it was too late. I just massed more hydralisks, since it seemed like all I could do at the moment. I think the extra hatcheries really helped. I was able to bring in more hydralisks than he could kill. I think there were also problems with his forcefield micro - he put forcefields down before his zealots could reach me, so he ended up blocking his units from attacking me. Even though he had a couple collossi, I was able to overcome him with hydralisks, and I won the game. My opponent was 54th in Gold division.

The second game was before we went out for lunch. I played Terran against a Protoss player on Scrap Station. The map has a short distance between the bases via air, but a long distance when you try and rush over land. I tried to block my ramp with buildings, but the ramp is wider than normal, so I had to add extra buildings. After I walled off, I went for medivacs. I held off his initial rush, but I ran into problems. It turned out I missed a spot, and I didn't complete wall off my ramp! Some zealots were leaking through. Luckily, concussive shells just finished upgrading, so by slowing down the lead zealot, it actually made his units trickle into my base.  
 
Because of the haphazard building position, his zealots took a little time to reach me, and I managed to survive. 
I decided to counter with a drop. As my loaded medivacs approached, he saw them coming and had a host of stalkers ready. I couldn't figure out why he knew I was coming, so I turned around and brought the units back to my base. Later, when I watched the replay, I realized that he had an observer following my medivacs. 
 
I was still on one base, so I was worried that I was falling behind. I started building another base, and wanted to check to make sure that he didn't expand already. I was still pumping out units. I loaded up one medivac and used it to scout out the other locations. He had just finished an expansion. I gathered up the rest of my army and blasted through the rock walls, opening up the shortcut between the two bases. My main army would not have to walk as far. After that, I dropped my units at his expansion. He rush his army in to attack, so then I sandwiched his army between my forces. I managed to wipe most of them out, but I didn't have enough to push into his base. I made more units back my base while I was pressuring at the front of his. By the time I had enough units to drop at the rear of his base, I was already breaking in the front of his base as well. He gave up shortly after. It seems like that's a good build for that map. I probably should have expanded sooner, but it looked like it was a good strategy for that map. That player was 5th in Gold division.
 
I didn't play the third game until after dinner. I was Protoss against a Terran opponent. This was a harder game for me. I don't know how to bust a MMM ball. I probably should have started using either collosus or high templar, but I sort of forget about them. Still, with my macro, I was able to wipe out one of his expansions. I started running low on money, and I didn't have enough units to be able to defend the high-yield expansion that I had at the center of the map. I ended up losing after that base crumbled. This was my first loss in 2011. My opponent was 5th in Gold division. My winning streak ended at 14 wins. I'm still 1st in Bronze.