Life In 19x19

Once again not been studying go much recently, my drive from earlier in the year fizzled out once again due to actual study commitments. I think I may have to just give up on the actual study of go (though obviously will keep playing) until I finish my degree in march.

That said I have played in a ...

A good sequence to know at :b31: is the following:

$$B
$$ +----------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . 5 4 7 a . .
$$ | . . . . W 6 3 O . . .
$$ | . . X , . . 1 2 . X .
$$ | . . . . . 8 . O . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . . Q ...

Congrats and all the best for the final!

Quick question, I must be missing something but I can't see the seki at the bottom of the board in your game against Andrew? It still looks like a two step ko to me

if you do play 4 at 5, then Elf likes this sequence:

$$W
$$ +------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . 4 . . |
$$ . . . . . X O . . |
$$ . . . . . X O a . |
$$ . . . . . X 2 3 . |
$$ . . . . . 1 O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . X ...

I've not posted on here in quite sometime now, mainly due to work and studying commitments... But I've recently acquired a bit more inspiration to find the time to play/study Go more. With Trigantius just around the corner this seems as good a moment as any to start up practising properly again and ...

That's why black would not descend in the first diagram quoted above, but would play hane with 3 in the following diagram, at least that would be my default answer locally:

$$B
$$ | . . O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . 7 . . .
$$ | . . O X 1 O . X .
$$ | . . O O X 2 . 6 ...

It always struck me that playing at 'a' looked like particularly bad shape when 'b' was available. It might be as simple as not making the empty triangle being a more efficient way to do the same thing (maintaining/increasing liberties for example).

My slightly more in depth undertanding of it is ...

Game 5 of last weekend plus analysis, one I really should have won but allowed my opponent to turn a large moyo into solid territory.

A lesson in not getting flustered at large frameworks I think, if I had just played solidly and nibbled away at the edges I would have won. I let it get the better ...

Some analysis of my second game this weekend. I felt I played very well at the beginning and end but very poorly in the middle allowing my opponent to catch up to the massive lead I had built up at the start. Eventually I won by resignation when my opponent made an overtime end game mistake but it ...

I've spent the last 4 days playing in the 2nd stage of the British Championship. While I suffered from a fairly heavy dose of imposter syndrome going in to it I had a great time and did much better than I expected. I won 3/7 games, albeit with two lucky wins and one game I threw away. Either way I'm ...

Possibly extending at the marked stone was an overplay and it should be at 'a' instead, that would definitely have killed the aji in the stone

$$B
$$ ----------------------+
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . X . . O . . |
$$ . X . . O X . X . O . |
$$ . . . a X O ...

Hi Ian,

This is a tricky one, it certainly looks at first glance like black should be fine and white is being unreasonable...

Firstly black should take the hane at the head of two rather than the decent, and the 2nd decent only reduces liberties on the black group too.

This is the best sequence I ...

I popped into the Durham go club tonight as I'm there for a few days studying. Had a good game against a low dan player (he wasn't exactly sure but somewhere around 1-2dan seemed right) No Leela analysis this time and my memory of the game afterwards was a mess Hopefully the game record and my ...

Good point, well made

Changing the move order a bit makes this painfully obvious. If I want to play 4 when black kicks, I should just exchange 5 for 6 as I would have done anyway, cutting clearly gives black too much. Funny how sometimes all it takes is a small diagram and two words to make ...

Came across this joseki in a game recently and my opponent played black 8. By most accounts this is a mistake and I can see this it's a classic, amateur "play the atari just cause it's there" but I wondered what the refutation would be? Is it simply a case of black playing a bad atari is punishment ...