My suggestion (though I am just 14k in OGS):
1. Play even game with someone stronger, maybe 2k stronger, most go server allow rank restrictions when creating a new game.
2. Play handicap games with someone your level. To catch up in a lost(handicap) game needs a lot of thinking, and generally do not tolerate mistake. You will be able to train yourself to spot and strike when the opponent made a mistake.
3. Review you games, not just the move you played, but your opponent's as well. Why did he/she play this? Was this a mistake or was he up to sth?
4. In correspondences game, try to record what you were thinking about when you played that move. Why did you play that, why you chose this over that, also what was your worries.
5. Read some books, get a mentor, meet some friends, play more games.
6. This one is truly personal. In most go server/software, the last move will be automatically marked. A weaker player, like me, will tend to respond to the only marked last move. The truth is, most of the time there are bigger or more urgent move to play. I disable this feature whenever I can, so that I will be able to open my eyes to look at the whole board instead of simply respond to the "last move".

I think it does just say "black to play". (Or white to play; the app can be set to mix up the colors.) It's just that since these are life and death problems, it seems to me you should be trying to save your group or kill your opponent. In that regard I should have just put "black to play" on the second problem.

Ah... they're understood to include all the statuses: life, death, seki, ko.

Or sometimes finding solutions that are better endgame, finishing in sente rather than gote, leave fewer ko threats etc. In my experience.

It's been a while since I've posted here, since I've been spending some time trying to count out an endgame in the DGS tournament. I had mentioned at the start of this thread that I thought I was trailing by a bit, which I think is true since at the start of the thread, the game was around move 150. But thanks to a lot of calculating on my part, I was able to pull out a victory by 2.5!

I'll be interested in the endgame analysis from the people who get a kick out of posting devilish endgame problems. I have a feeling the way we played, the result could have been anything from W+10 to B+10.

seems like you are just about there at 5kyu strength from the looks of that game congratz

_________________
My Baduk Journey

I am not one of these endgame experts, however it is pretty obvious that already has a negative impact on your later endgame --> why?

You are further criticizing yourself on your moves and - what do the moves , , and have in common?!

My earlier comment in this thread was not meant as a joke. Each of such moves is like donating your opponent one handicap stone, i. e. if you manage to omit one of such moves per game in average it is (by definition of the ranking / handicap system in Go) equivalent of climbing one stone in strength .

Are you sure you meant ? I think I have to play there or O17. Don't want to let White clamp or play at P17. After all, I lost a couple of points when White clamped on the right side.

Sure, the other two form empty triangles (I'd point out that since this was a turn-based game, I played these moves before I started the study journal!). But I think I have to play someplace at the top for .

Is there a good way to figure out which move -- the direct connection vs. the tiger mouth -- is better in that situation? Similar shapes show up all the time in my games, and probably a lot of other players' games, too. Kageyama has something in this connecting vs. cutting chapter of Lesons in the Fundamentals of Go. Davies translates, "If you thoughtlessly choose the wrong way, your connection may even turn out to be bad", but Kageyama doesn't tell us how to figure out the right way.

Well, he just says it depends on the stones to the left, but that's a bit too vague to help.

Yep, because of you later had to respond in move 109 in gote. If you played O17 instead (joseki move and better shape) you would have had sente after white 108. Thus, on P17 effectively wasted one of your moves.

Edit: It shall be mentioned that , too, forms an empty triangle (see below). Of course you cannot predict exactly how the endgame situation after move 100 will have developed. In the diagram below it is just more likely that a white endgame move on the cross point in situation A is sente while it is mostly gote in situation B. Of course empty triangles are not per se bad moves, sometimes they are the only move in complicated contact fights etc.; however they are bad in maybe ~80% of the cases. Therefore, they can be seen as alarm bells; while there are much more subtle ways of wasting a move in Go, in the case of empty triangles it is at least easy to spot...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]Bcm
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . a . . . . b . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , Y O . . . O X . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . Y Y O . . . O X . X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X O O . . . O O X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . M . . . . . . . M . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This showed up in Tsumego Pro today, and it's not quite the normal problem, but one that I found interesting if difficult. No kos or sekis here:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Black to, well, you figure it out
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O O O . . O , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . X X O O X . O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

[Expletive Deleted]. These things always come so quickly to the rest of you!

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

It didn't come quickly to me. I remember learning this when I was 4 kyu.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Dfan:

Don't presume. Read it out. THAT is how to get to 5k.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Is there a good way to figure out whether a solid connection, a hanging connection, or a keima connection is best? (It sounds like you never heard of a keima connection. I hadn't either, at your level. ) It goes without saying that some reading or seeing is involved. And there is a fourth option: no connection at all. The first tesuji book I bought, a small pamphlet by the Nihon Kiin when I was 4 kyu, spent the very first examples on the question of which kind of connection to make. It was enlightening, and gave me a pretty good sense of when to play which. But, OC, there is no magic bullet.

I remember having the question for protecting a single stone on the second line when I was a beginner. A lot of beginners descend to the first line. Good in spirit, but usually bad in practice, because your opponent can simply descend to the first line and make another threat. I knew enough to avoid that, as a rule. The question I had was whether to make a solid connection or a hanging connection. It was over 25 years before I learned the answer. And not the complete answer, OC. There are almost always exceptions in go.

Back in '98 and in the next few years I had the opportunity to analyze some games with Jujo Jiang and Rui Naiwei. One thing that struck me about Rui was how often she pushes the limits of the possible. When you are learning I think that it is good to emulate that. Instead of protecting against imaginary threats by your opponent, ask yourself what can I get away with. That is why some beginners descend to the first line to save a single stone. They think that that gives them more territory. Once they realize that that is not generally the case, they stop making that play. It is, as a rule, too thin. Going for what you can get away with means that your opponent may be able to take advantage of your thinness. If so, you can learn from that. But if you underreach, you may just wonder why you lost the game.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Some useful rules to thnk about:

1. Do I need to preserve eye shape because my group is not already secure? If so think about the hanging connection first.

2. Is my group big enough or strong enough to not need eyes? Then play the solid connection so as to avoid giving the opponent ko threats.

3. Is my group close to the corner with a possible hane for the opening on the other boundary? Then look for a better protection such as a keima or ogeima which will protect the other side as well.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

DrStraw says that the answer is the first thing to look at. Well, it is the first thing that he looks at, and it is the first thing that I look at. But we are experienced players. The first thing inexperienced players look at is, I think, the hane. The first lesson from this problem, which comes from a middle game joseki, is why the hane does not work. And I think that that is the most important lesson. As DrStraw points out, the move that works in this position will not always work. But then the hane will not work, either. That's why I think that don't play the hane is the more important lesson here.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.