Life In 19x19

I bet you are freakishly strong at fighting! But how do you decide wether to reduce a territory or to invade? I would like to see a game from you!

I am 1k - 1d on KGS and sometimes I count, sometimes I just have a "feeling" of the score. Most of the time, at the end of the game, I am in byoyomi ...

As you don't give your KGS handle is it hard to check, but it is hard to believe that you can reach a solid 4d on KGS without being able to count. Was it gained through a large number of blitz games won on time? If you really do have a solid 4d there then it is a sad reflection on the KGS rating ...

It's not that hard, once the game is almost over.

But it is hard for me.

RobertJasiek wrote:Please clarify: is your problem a) judging which intersections to consider territory or b) counting the intersections that are already known to be territory?

My problem is counting the intersections that are already known to be territory.

This is the position (I just realized that I only got 0.5 komi since I played against someone weaker, on the board I have 43 points less). Just now I tried recounting it 3 times, but I counted it to be very close each time.

$$ Position at move 263 ...

How do you learn to count a game? I don't mean judging how the territory will be reduced, but plain counting of territory. I read books líke "High speed game analysis" by Cho Chikun and the Fawthrop lectures, but my problem is far more elementary. Now only am I not able to judge how much territory ...

Doesn't look too good either, in my opinion. I would be scared of WQ17.

It is from "The Workshop Lectures" by Yilun Yang.
He wrote "Black A would leave a weakness at B, and if white jumps one space to the left, black would have to play at B. 11 finishes the shape with one move."
As I understand it, the shape is supposed to be finished, so I thought the cut has to be bad ...

Why is it bad for white to play O17 after move 7 and then cut? What can black do to punish white?

Do you recommend to read some book on semeai like "The Theory and Practice of Semeai" or Robert Jasieks book "Capturing Races"? I really suck at capturing races, will that ability improve enough just by doing tsumego? What do you think Lee Sedol, for example, knows about it? I don't think he studied ...

I'm not sure what you mean with "No Mind". Do you mean to say that one should not think about why a specific move was played, but instead replay it without thinking and concentrate on the visual aspect to train ones intuition? Is it bad to unconsciously guess the next move each time?
But you said it ...

I was quite content with the way I played this game, I would play it nearly the same were I to play again. I still lost by 8,5 points, though. Did he simply play much better overall or did I make some big mistakes?

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]TM[600]OT ...

I'm normally very cautious and recalculate everything multiple times after each move.

Ah! That is something that Kotov warns against. His recommendation is to read each variation (that you do read) only once. And then trust your reading.

What may be happening is that, because you check and ...

I'm normally very cautious and recalculate everything multiple times after each move. So even in long games I'll get to byoyomi at the (beginning) of the middle game most of the time.

Bill Spight: I have the sequence read out, play it out and suddenly he captures my stones. What I think when I play blitz... Not much different from longer games. I might play more aggressive.

daal: Theoretically I should be good enough to see those things at a glance. I just somehow overlook it.