Life In 19x19

I'm not new to this forum, but it's been quite a while since I've participated. Posting here seems like the right way to start back up.

I disappeared due to a chronic illness. I had to dedicate any time when I could focus well enough to play go to work. Things have gotten a bit better recently, and ...

For move 44, you could have killed black in the corner with B15. The best black can do is form the L+1, but since you get the next move you can kill it: https://senseis.xmp.net/?L1Group

game 2, : Hi BG,

Perhaps you were thinking of this local shape ?
$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 2 . . . |
$$ . . . 3 4 . . . |
$$ . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . 1 . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 5 . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ --------------- You could check with deepleela or zbaduk ...

4-5 months ago, I was comfortably playing at 1D on Fox and had ranked up to 2D on two occasions. I got sick for a while and my ranking fell precipitously to 3k, but now that I'm feeling better, I'm back at 1k. However, something has changed. I can't for the life of me get back to 1D. If I had to ...

Thought I'd share a pic of the two little fur-monsters that we just adopted:

Image-1.jpg

Last week, one of them -- I have no idea how -- managed to hang himself by the tail from a kitchen chair. Needless to say he was spitting mad. When I grabbed him, he bit the dickens out of my and finger. He ...

Overall, I thought you played well in the beginning. I don't think you make a clear mistake until move 38. The first move that I think was consequential was 74 followed by 76. After 76, white is playing catch-up. White has more territory at that point, but white has no scope to make more. Black has ...

Like Dave (ez4u) had the sense that you did not have to go to so much trouble to win the game, after Black's poor opening. But demonstrating that convincingly is not so easy. Dave has not replied, so I enlisted the aid of Deep Leela (Leela 11) to come up with an illustrative line of play. Deep ...

It seemed to me that by refraining from the honey connect I could preserve the opportunity to play around C if I ever managed to get a stone in the area of B. Is that a reasonable consideration?

There is death in the honey.

Well this is an ironic mistake. I usually blame these blunders on my ...

Thank you! One follow-up question:

At 90 if you atari from the other side, drive Black's stones in the center, and then take your corner with Q18, who is ahead? Your 90 in the game is a good, strong play, but it is perhaps more complicated than you needed.

I've played your moves in the board ...

Bill, thank you as always for the detailed comments. These are very helpful. Two follow-up questions:

:w26:: What about the hane-and-connect at B-17? I seem to recall that it is good when Black has stones on both nearby star points on the side.

Here is the board following black 25:

$$c ...

As I grow more experienced in giving advice, I tend to grow closer to Bill's advice: do what you enjoy.

The problem with that is that what you enjoy doing, won't usually get you where your ambitions lie.

This is a common criticism of Bill's advice, but I think it misses the larger point. One's ...

I have no idea whether playing this game seriously would be good for you. I also don't know how good you could be or if you'd find something valuable from the game despite not becoming a high dan amateur.

But I do know this: Even you can't know until you try it. Take a few months and do the things ...

I played the game below at the local club today. My opponent and I are about the same rank (3-4k AGA). Would someone have time to provide some comments?

I thought the game started off well. I think my first real mistake is at move 54, but overall, I was very happy with my play up to move 108. At ...

I bought this edition about two years ago, and I have been very happy with it. The content is fantastic! As you say, it provides a very exhaustive exploration of standard shapes. My only criticism is that the book is organized by the original shapes (L, L+1, etc.) and not also by the techniques used ...

I was helping out someone from my local club by putting together some of the basic sequences for dealing with the 4-4 small knight enclosures. But I realized that I'm not sure why two sequences are evaluated as I think they usually are. One of those cases again where the one who learns the most is ...