I've been mostly away from go from August, so my rank hasn't gone up as much as I wanted, but playing a game or two here and there when I feel the mood striking. Hopefully a game like this should help focus my attention and such . My opponent is 1k/1d on Tygem which is quite intimidating, he says 2k KGS but he plays mostly free games. Ah well, hopefully won't get too badly beaten ...

Planning to play dual 4-4s as ever . I'm getting stronger at fighting so will happily take the battle to him if needs be. Have fun watching!

Let's try not to be too boring, shall we? ))

I considered playing the mokuhazushi in the other direction, then press down for a wall, but I don't want to play that game. If he approaches, I will try some kind of pincer I think.

Considered approaching the 3-4, but I don't like this kind of thing:

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[go]$$Bc Prisoner Count: B-0 W-0
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$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ | . . a , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Now white has a huge move available at 'a', and I'm pincered, so kind of need to respond up there. There's no guarantee I'll finish that in sente, so I need to approach the 3-5 first I think.

If he avoids taisha I will try to use the wall by approaching lower right 4-4 or extending, probably extend, but white feels a bit slow just extending I think. If he connects above in the taisha because he has the ladder, white gets fine profit in exchange for black influence. If he plays normal taisha...well let's see what happens?

You only live once...

No need to hesitate here, this is what I thought would happen. Let's see how black wants to play.

As expected . Now how complicated do I want to make this... I have the ladder, so might just stick with getting some nice influence - that works well with my 4-4 stones.

Black goes for influence.

Surprisingly tame for the taisha...

Why does black need to capture with 17 when he can just ladder the w stone if it ever moves? If w does e6 and cuts f5 black can just respond. I tend to leave things like this and think it is maybe a weakness of mine. I would have played c15.