9

Very happy to have black, I was almost going to ask for it without nigiri. It's usually easier to replay games after playing them when I'm black. I think it's because I take control of the story of the game in the beginning.

I have to decide which orientation I want to think of the board! I checked a diagram elsewhere, it seems that A-T is the x-axis and 1-19 is the y axis for this forum. So I'm just going to think of my moves as (x,y) on a cartesian plane. I want to play in the upper right corner so that the game goes as closely to those I've seen before as possible. I'm really hoping he doesn't take the bottom right corner, it would mess up my memorization a lot

I'm playing the 4-4 point in hopes that he's going to give me influence at some point. I find it much easier to control influence games, and I think I can keep track of an attack pretty well. I have a few personal 'fuseki' from dual 4-4 points in my back pocket, too, which have slightly unusual moves (AI gives them -1% to -3%) that force white into playing the kind of game I enjoy the most. Don't worry, no 3-3 invasions
My goal in this particular game is to start a fight that can force resignation before I lose track of the game; that means I want to play ambitiously enough in the opening that later he has to accept a fight where I can force resignation.

My greatest strength compared to my peers is my skill at deep-reading and visualization, which is maybe why I was a bit overconfident in general professionals in the thread that spawned this one. Pretty much all my other skills are low-dan AGA level at most, which might be about his level. I really hope that my reading ability will still carry over despite not seeing the position! I have some strategies cooking to make sure I don't forget anything important. I'll talk about them later, this is long enough of a post for one move

I am a bit torn.
I'd like to see how far we can get in the game in which case it would make sense to play a patient low complexity game. However despite my opponent being considerably stronger I'd like to try to win. Given the slightly unusual nature of the game I might have an outside chance - I would expect this to favour the stronger player but maybe the element of confusion means I have an outside chance too. I think I'll try create a moyo game since that will be tougher for us both to visualise.

I almost opened his hide by habit, since I've read a few of these before, but never played! I'll have to make sure never to do that. Anyway, I'm very happy I got to play bottom right. It took me a moment to figure out what the numbers were in (x,y) - I might practice associating coordinates to points away from the game for a minute or two.

Anyway, I expect my strategic comments this game are going to have some really dumb errors, since I can't just look at the board to see why I'm wrong. Whenever this game ends, I'll try to go back over everything and draw a diagram for places I disagree with my past (or future perfect?) self.

tempted to play a 5-4 in this corner but that really would feel like playing into the hands of the stronger player.

Low approach.
Oh boy, it's cold over here. I just had a nice music lesson and dinner, and I couldn't help myself from planning ahead in this game. Anyway, I'm a little disappointed that he didn't play 4-17 (komoku facing his stone), as I'm really comfortable with that opening (it's most common v. dual 4-4s these days, at least against me).
Against this move, I have some standard plans, but most of them are exceptionally aggressive. I was realizing over dinner that my mental eye isn't nearly as good as my fleshy one at deciphering good and bad exchanges, which is the heuristic I primarily use to judge moves in my aggressive openings. So I'm just going to aim to play principled Go here, in hopes that it'll make things easy to remember later. I expect him to back off, and then I'm going to simply assist the weakest stone on the board.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ -----------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------------------------[/go]

16-16 Q16, 4-4 D4, 16-4 Q4, 4-16 D16, 6-3 F3

I'll keep things simple for now

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ -----------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------------------------[/go]

16-16 Q16, 4-4 D4, 16-4 Q4, 4-16 D16, 6-3 F3, 3-6 C6

Large Knight's move into the center.
I didn't realize he was intent on being blind too! Well, that just makes me want to fight even more, since I think I can crush his reading. Maybe I should just play normally and wait for mistakes, since it's a more consistent way to win against players you outmatch. But this is mostly for fun, so fun moves it is!
Speaking of fun moves, I've never seen the move I'm playing before, but it also seems to be the most natural move I've never seen before.
If white tries to cut, I should be fine, by my reading and my intuition (it's only a 2v2 scenario, everything is still light, my stones have decent shape as is - you can only be punished if you've made a mistake).
If white tries to kick, my knight's move is already in a fine position. I think it will be well-placed in the fighting that happens with the 4-5 attach, 3-5 block, 3-3 invade follow up.
I think the local follow up I'm most afraid of is 4-2, locking down the corner and threatening invasions on my side, but I can just ignore it and tenuki entirely - I should be able to get a faster opening than him if he digs down too early.
Actually, I think the best thing he can do is probably tenuki himself. Maybe approach my bottom right corner?
Basically, the intent of this move is to start developing really, really fast, at least somewhere around the board, so that he's forced to play to start a fight early. And I don't think I'm unfavored, so I'm just in a position that makes me happy. Maybe with some study, I'll add this to my personal bag of 'fuseki' after the game. I'll have to see what AI says, maybe there's a really nice continuation for W that I'm missing.

Is his different strategy to confuse me by playing moves that I have no experience in visualising? I will try play fairly sensible for now. Moyo plan on the back burner for now (I never like them anyway.)

As expected. If I just back off, then white can become strong in front of my large knight's move. Since I'm trying to claim that that is influence, I shouldn't allow W to build a group in front of it - I'll not be able to use it to fight or build or anything, so W becomes obviously more efficient in the bottom left. So I must pincer (kick and attach over top are not my style and not good here regardless).
Which pincer? Well, if I'm afraid of being shoulder hit later, I should play high, but I think I'm not actually that scared. My large knight's isn't committing into the bottom, it's just sorta there. So, if he builds a group later by shoulder hitting and I'm reduced, that should be okay. The tighter way to play makes it as unappetizing as possible to commit to the stone for white, instead of invading my corner. I'm very happy if he jumps and shoulder hits my stone, building a center oriented group, where I've already come out to the center. So, I'll go with the normal move here, activating my previous stones as much as possible.

Jumping into 3-3 feels like a mild risk of making that weird move look more natural, but I can't see how it won't remain weird looking. If this bottom side turns into moyo then I think invading/reducing will be fun blind!