Aims
1) improve my game
2) keep a record of memorable games, track progress, track new ideas/concepts
3) British Champion next year, hehe

Here is a game I played at the London club 14th May. I seem to have added a few comments soon after.



comments and ideas appreciated, though this game was relatively simple so there's not so much. I think I am still in my phase of playing a simple game with endgame strength that's lasted since February.

I hope to upload more games each week

MSO open

I struggled with the time controls - even the 90 minutes of the London open felt a bit short for me. Every game I ended up deep into overtime, and so did my opponent except for SS. I think games 1,2,4 were the final game to finish in each round.

Each game I had horrific errors towards the end. Every game was won in a reverse. I won from behind or lost from in front. Games 4 (and partially game 1) was a complete mess, where I thought I was losing horribly, and started messing around, not tending to my own weaknesses, but my opponent was also in time trouble

4 games as white after nigiri is a bit surprising

I think that C1 counts because it is chinese scoring (where eyes in seki count).

I made an aim here to be Champion within 5 years, and achieved it in 3, but if you keep up the rate of improvement doing it in 1 year could be possible!

(Btw I am AS of last game, move 129 was another big regret (along with the slack exchange on lower side), sacrificing half the group was too much of a rushed compromise, I doubt I'll die after f14 but I didn't like the sente peep).

In that case I wonder if in Chinese scoring, the difference between the two plays scores is always odd (due to odd number of total squares on the board, and sekis leaving an even number of empty points), ignoring komi that is.

I know who you are, and thanks for your friendly help these few years.

I've just updated all the files with lots more comments. In our game, I've added stuff on move 129 - I think the sacrifice was correct, but you had to kill me in return

Also, on the cool life and death problem on the bottom left (move 197 ish)

kgs games
clear win here as 3d

big defeat as 4d

could find any way through in this 2 stone handicap game

wow, a win as 4d

Points to consider

1) always be ready to tenuki - go is one big endgame, play the biggest point
2) think about probing moves before committing. (more for long games)
3) still searching for the ideal of wondering what the best move is?


4) it gets harder and harder to improve as you go up - you don't know what you are doing wrong, need discipline when going through pro games to objectively test self.

I think I'm more respectful of the value of cuts after MSO.

Getting more confident with probes from recent pro games

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . O . . . . .
$$ . . O . O X X . . .
$$ . . O X X M . . . .
$$ . . . . . W M . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ---------------------[/go]

Seo Nungwuk vs Choi Jeong

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . 3 O . 1 . . . .
$$ O . . . . O 2 . O .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ---------------------[/go]

Tan Xiao vs Park Jungwhan

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . O . O O . |
$$ . X . X . O . . . |
$$ . . . 1 . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------------[/go]

Weon Seongjin vs Huang Yunsong

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ --------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ O . X . . X . 2 . . . |
$$ O . . . O . . X . . . |
$$ . O . X 1 . . . . . . |
$$ O X X X O O O . X . . |
$$ . X O O X . . O X . . |[/go]

:Resign
my own game



L&D

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O O O O O O O .
$$ | O X X . . X . . .
$$ | 1 O X O . O X . .
$$ | . . X O . O X X X
$$ | 2 . X . X X O X O
$$ | . . X . X O O O X
$$ | X X O . O O O O .
$$ | . O . O . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Weon Seongjin vs Huang Yunsong

Weiqitv's new trick move series

I totally failed to work out how to punish this trick move

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . O . . . . . |
$$ . . B . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------[/go]

All of those moves in your last post (well, other than the L&D problem) look bad to me.

well, I've edited it to explain the probes a bit.

I recently joined pandanet for the Euro league. The first game below I learnt quite a bit from my mess up at the bottom.

Otherwise, no very memorable games. The pandanet system seems weaker than KGS. Pandanet was quite awkward at first. It has so few features, but the simplicity is now quite appealing. In any case, it seems more popular than KGS, so its easier to get a game. The social plaza bit is totally not loading, and the app is still full of error messages, but I've no issues with bugs other than when playing handicap games, so it seems fine.

no idea why it adds numbers to my message

2nd game my opponent overplayed a bit, but I can't say I played well, I can see so many mistakes both a few early on, and my final play (not quite overplay it turns out, but I failed to read how complicated it could be) that he failed to punish.

After MSO, I thought my main progress was in the endgame, getting a better sense of the centre and sides from the game with SS. I'm trying to study Lee Chang-ho and Lee Sedol more carefully for different sides of game. I need to get more confident in fighting. I seem to be reasonably good in tight fights and read clearly to punish my opponent's overplay, but loose global thinking, not so good.

instead of thinking about what is the right move, biggest move, I will try thinking more: where does my opponent want to play next? How to I stop them?

I think that my local reading has naturally been very good as I have a good automatic memory of tesujis and shapes after I see them once. But I have started looking at Life and Death problems more seriously now. (what else is there to do?) People say you should practise L&D lots to improve but I haven't found it very useful in the past. We'll see what happens.

I've joined the UK pandanet team. Our first match against Belgium went well with 3-1 victory.

My endgame strength doesn't show well this game.

I give a reasonably detailed commentary, but the game was very peaceful. My opponent was in overtime quite early on, but I still had 5 mins left at the end.

I think L8 extend is much better and was surprised you didn't, if then h7 there is a problem at j7 which might not work quite yet with white breaking through to the left, but maybe something like e6 can make miai? Or just pull back and white needs to fix, maybe by pushing k8 and you extend so maybe a fix in sente (but you don't mind being forced to extend there and reduce worries of the aji to the right, though it seems you worried about that a lot more than I would) or if a gote fix you take can take sente unlike game (though maybe you use sente to keep on splitting and try to weasel your way into the left side). And even without sharp lines like that the squeeze hurts: you ended up faffing around with l2 small yose whilst he got important outside; maybe you'd prefer to play that direction initially. I wonder if such play would look as silly to a pro as playing the vital point of a 3-space eye of an unsurrounded group would to us.

Also move 125 isn't l9 atari then p9 jump better? I didn't count anything, just shape feeling.

Good job with the win anyhow. Btw Nelis is a nice guy, I met him at the WAGC.

-Yep, L8 does seem clearly much much better. I think B needs to protect soon, but it's worth the extra power in the attack. In that case perhaps his L3 was a serious mistake that should be at M2. Your e6 seems clever, I assume he would have to protect then. Or he solidly connects initially, and then his shape is still bad and I attach to E9.

-L2 isn't that small, but I didn't even consider not playing in the area. At the least I should consider C2, or attach at E9. Now you point it out, I can see I didn't gain anything

-move 125, actually I was scared he would tenuki the atari, but frankly either way, it's nowhere near as big as I thought I counted it to be.

a few thoughts on joseki



I found an analysis of 7x7 that must be about a year old, when I was much weaker. I thought I did all sorts such as 6x5, but couldn't find them.


another endgame practice I made up was showing that 1st line moves are worth at least 2 points, 2nd line >=6, 3rd line >=16

Ideas to try/ Things to focus on when playing:
-practise attack more - leave weaknesses in your shape
-imagine position from opponent's perspective
-use opponent's time to think

PANDANET

In the pandanet league, I played board 1 against Sweden, against a 2517 rated player, the strongest opponent I've ever seriously faced except Sai. I estimated 60% win chance. Perhaps my opponent would underestimate me for my rank, as I know I've improved a lot.

I gradually built up a large lead in the opening with a moyo, despite not liking them. My training with leelabot 5d appears to have made a difference. Move 55-59 I played a slightly dubious double hane sequence in the centre, my opponent tenukied ?!?! twice to connect up 2 strong groups in gote with 10 points. By move 70-80, they played so simply (they didn't notice my lead?) it was already endgame, which is my strength, so they went down without much of a fight. No potential to fall into middle game traps.

The game showed my improvements in the opening subtleties and balance, and judgement (practising counting was helpful but a bit too tiring. More helpful was better judging who has the advantage) There was no middle game, so it is not easy to judge my issues there. For sure, my fighting (reading and shape) needs much work to bring it up to standard but I think I've gotten more balanced, and am mostly over my old thought process of never cutting. And in the endgame, I can see how far it still is from perfection, but I think my judgement of the size of centre moves is a lot better.



Interesting:
Leelabot's whole opening theory, particularly variations move

Good:

• My opening punishing D2, O3, and R3, and playing N15 according to leela
• Clear plan to punish the weird invasion up to
• confidence that was gote
• clarity about my advantage, and much more reliable counting, and better endgame to be clear that sacrificing the points on the left in return for the centre was fine .

Bad:

• Missing danger of J4 in opening

To improve:

• Notice the option of R15 and at R16
• reading the cut correctly for ,
• move m9 to l8
• clarity that what I thought was a small blunder may have been the best sequence to take sente
• L1 (B 115) assumed a simple connect, missing the possibility of fighting back, maybe I lost 5 points total, but 119 was the mistake

well

1. I handled the weird invasion reasonably, but the M9 double hane was dubious
2. This is helpful for more accurate reading. I think I have improved.
3. A little, though I doubt I'll ever fit the Luo Xihe model I was thinking of.

my London open wasn't great, getting placed with rating points much lower than several people I haven't lost to on even. I can try to blame lack of experience for nerves, and attempts to imitate leela's style that I couldn't handle, but whatever the case, I have much to learn.

a highlight is repeated death/near death in every game

game 3 is incompletely recorded, but the others are reasonably accurate