Because I had to learn a new language, I ended up not playing Go for 18 months. Before that I reached 12k. Now I'm starting anew.

I need to better my capacity for reading the status of groups in the game.(I've just ordered "1001 Life-and-Death Problems" for this purpose). I also make it a habit to look up the joseki I played (with or without success) and apply what I learn about that joseki to my future games.

I've added some comments here:


White made a couple crucial mistakes that cost huge amounts of points: not playing that cut on the upper side, and playing out a broken ladder that gave away the entire right side to black. You saw quite a few of black's issues yourself, at least afterwards, so you may want to consider playing with longer time controls so you have time to spot them in play. 10 minutes absolute is really quite fast, maybe 2-3 seconds per move. I don't recommend playing blitz games until you're stronger, as playing so quickly can really reinforce bad habits because you don't have time to consider alternatives.

Edit: Apparently I wasn't looking closely when I threw down that squeeze following the cut on the top side. There's a mistake there, which I will leave to you to find.

Thanks for the feedback! I've just read through Kageyama's chapter on cutting and connecting in "Lessons in the fundamentals of Go" and it gave me good perspective on alternative strategies. I think the time might have been an issue as well, we were playing with 10 minutes absolute + 10 minutes for 25 stones I think.

That's a fairly good amount of time to play the game if you're using most of your 10 min periods.

Oh, this is different from what I understood. The game file looks like it is only 10 minutes each, with no overtime.

A follow up on skydyr's review:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . O . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . O . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . b . . . . . . . a . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Here, look at the two move options. I'm not recommending either in this situation but I want you to get a feel for which one increases your potential territory more. At the start of the game you'll not be focused overly on creating definite territory but staking out claims to wider areas that you are threatening to get at least part of as territory. You should try to look over this game and others you play and look at the opening in this like. Are my moves increasing my potential, are they reducing my opponent's or are they necessary for this group to be stable (i.e. not easily attacked). b here encourages your opponent to reduce your potential, this is bad.

A match I played yesterday evening, it was part of a mini-tournament.



A match I played today.

Hi Thimblefox,

Game 1:

atari P14. This is a good, basic shape to learn and remember:
when you hane with , there are two good follow-ups: R15 and P14.
Both B and W want them. But each player can only get one of them, not both.
If W extends to P14 on , then you push at R15.
If W blocks at R15 on (the real game), then you atari P14.
You cannot let W get both R15 and P14,
which is what would happen with your connect on --
W would extend to P14 on -- W ends up with both vital points R15 and P14.

W also did not understand these basic vital points.
W should've taken P14.

Maybe you have heard of the term miai . ( Pronounced [mɪ-aɪ] )When you hane , you have miai of R15 and P14 --
if W takes P14, you take R15.
If W takes R15, you take P14.
You cannot let W take both vital points.

If you study and learn this basic sequence: starting from
your approach , W attaches , you hane ,
the miai of R15 and P14 --
the knowledge here is worth this game.

Hi Thimblefox,

Game 2:

mistake. Instead, extend to C13 -- your comment is correct.
After you extend to C13 on , B hanes D18, you block E18,
B connects C18, you tiger's mouth F17 -- this completes a basic joseki.

If you study and learn this basic corner sequence, this is worth this game.

Hi EdLee, thanks for your comments. I see now that there's actually a joseki for this, I'll read up on it, thank you for pointing this out!

I'm really starting to feel how much trouble it's causing me that I don't have much training with Tsumego.

You say at that you are trying to stick to the plan. What is your plan?

Edit: a couple of comments about the opening moves:

I meant that playing at A would be sticking to the plan, as opposed to defending the corner straight away. I just looked it up as well, and it seems that A is also a way to answer white's approach when one's playing orthodox fuseki. http://senseis.xmp.net/?OrthodoxFusekiApproach

EDIT: Though they only discuss pincer moves.

A is unusual but possible.

At this point, you have a very common opening. You can check out a resource like http://ps.waltheri.net/ to see where professionals played in situations like this. It may give you some ideas in areas that are common, but you're not sure.

Anyway, you're correct that tsumego comes first
How about the lower side of the board? What is the status of the black group?

Hi Thimblefox,

good.

W has 2 ways to cut this keima, starting at o6 or P6.
See note on .

- standard bad habit: "push and retreat".
W should cut on at P7: "push and cut".
If W could not or didn't want to cut at P7, then don't push with at all.

You were lucky W didn't cut at P7.

No. After the peep , the local follow-up is L2 attach.
If L2 fails, then don't peep with at all.

good, locally: broken shape for B.
Even better is hane E1.

study the local variations if you kosumi at G8 instead;
see what happens if W pushes and cuts, ataris, etc.

locally this is bad shape for W; but your bottom group is in trouble.

- locally this exchange is terrible for you: broken shape.
Globally, this bottom group is in trouble, because of earlier mistakes.

- locally disaster broken shape for you.
Compare to .

turn at H6.

bad habit. You think about why this is bad.
Just connect directly at .

- 101 same bad habit: "push and retreat".
After the push , the follow-up is cut.
If you cannot cut or don't want to cut, then don't push to begin with.
Compare with - .

Notice for all the notes so far, up to 101,
all were basic shape problems (except for your bottom group
getting into trouble, which is a bigger-picture problem. )

To your comments, Amelia.

: I know what kind of position the fuseki aims at, exactly why that's a good position I don't know(!). But that's also why I'm playing it, For instance now I get the opportunity to explore how to reply to . As for the aim of the fuseki itself, I simply know the 'what' (using your opponent's approach to build territory), but as is rather obvious, I don't know the 'how'.

: First off, thanks for the energy you put into this little analysis. Now I want to explore what replying with O16 would look like, because variation 3 and 4 both look problematic for black (not sure about variation 5 right now). I'll look a bit closer at these variations.

: This is true, but then I'm dealing with either a pincer or a corner invasion. And it looks like white can push me into this position? (But maybe at A would be a better result for me )



: I was thinking I might develop influence on the lower right. But I still have to look at how white can exploit this. Fuseki sure is complicated.

: Here I was thinking that the wall would give me influence towards the centre. If white doesn't play at R10, I was thinking I could play there after playing A or B, and then use it to push him down. But there's probably some move here I haven't looked at. I'll take a better look at it.

: Thanks, EdLee. I thought I'd just get cut if I played a hane, and then it'd easily die.

: I'll look into this. should be played at P7 then? Ah, just continued reading. Glad I came to the same conclusion as you then.

: I was thinking of L2, but didn't know if it would work. I promise to do more tsumego.

You don't need to worry too much about opponents doing that to you for quite some time.

You can keep it simpler by playing at P15 if you want.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . W 5 X 7 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Black can just take the corner and the marked white stone is left looking a bit pointless. White's right side group isn't exactly going to be making big points either, with Q10 there. That's not to say that it's terrible for white, but it's certainly playable for black.

It could go this way, it doesn't have to. But I was curious to know your plan.


You and me both. The 'how' is always the bigger challenge

All of the white moves I showed you are playable for black. Have a look at some joseki from those positions and think at what the result would look like for you. You'll see neither the invasion nor the double approach are really that scary. The challenge is to get the "how" right. And here we are back at tsumego
Edit: by the way have a good look at the shape moves EdLee showed you. All of those are very important for developping good tactics.

Others already answered better than I could

Well, white is quite thin in the area. So you can expect to push him down. But the way he will answer your moves will change the board. Your opponent will want to avoid being surrounded (Being surrounded this early in the opening is normally bad). He probably won't be happy about taking 2nd line territory all the way and leaving you a perfect wall on the outside. He'll by trying to get out.
So before you start pushing him around, you need to think about where you'll be pushing him.
Depending on where you start, the board won't look the same. Choosing a direction can be very difficult.