Also something to study: this new joseki that's cropping up in pro games a lot recently. I actually remember wondering why people didn't play this descent instead of block back when I first came across this joseki so it seems there has been a re-evaluation:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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$$ ----------------+[/go]

Interesting. I saw it for the first time yesterday in a game played on Tygem by Meng Tailing (video here). Black's position is not as strong as in the joseki, but white doesn't get as much points and has no ladder breaker to aim to.

Another Pandanet European Team Championship game.



I stood in for Bruno against Zoran Mutabžija (who was a 5d European Champion many decades ago but playing at 2d now) and won by a comfy 27.5 in the end although there were a few nervous moments. He started with a diagonal opening and in a pincer counter-pincer running fight I spent a long time reading out a press expecting him to push and cut but he just crawled on the 3rd line! Then he made some bizarre attach and crosscut sacrificing his pincer group and I got thick but then played 2 perhaps slow moves and he developed quickly on the rest of the board. Peeved that he didn't defend his top right corner I attacked it but it connected out on the 1st line weakening my thickness so I should have just left it unplayed as after I returned to answer his approach he nicely hassled my thickness and it ended up squirming for connection. I managed to recover somewhat and cut off 2 stones with some peepy tesujis to grow my right side which I then solidified into solid points in exchange for him making a huge double wing moyo from his lower left shimari. I was a bit nervous now and misread a way in so tenukied to cap his shimari and luckily he quickly ignored (I was in byo-yomi by now, he hadn't used much time) and then didn't try to kill me so I managed to live quite comfortably inside his moyo and from then on it was an easy endgame (with a cute tombstone tesuji he missed to capture a few stones).

Well, I've not been playing studying much, but I did go to the London Open which was fun. I only won 3 out of 7, but it was a very strong field this year and I got to play two 7ds (including Haylee) so that was a reasonable result. I ended in 11th place and was surprised to win the David Ward cup for top British (as in eligible for British Go Championship which is citizen or 5 years residence) player with so few wins. I started off with decent wins against 4d and 5d, then lost to 7d (Kim Seongjin) but gave a decent game and actually made him worry about being behind with a cool centre haengma. I played slowly though and then fell to bits and lost on time in byoyomi. Then I played Haylee, she went for territory and I didn't embarrass myself too much but she gradually pulled ahead and when her last reduction group connected to safety, I didn't harass the remaining thin group and played bad endgame she won by about 20. Next I lost to a 4d in a rather regretful game, losing by 2.5 after a slack late middlegame and several point losing time tesujis. Then lost to xhu (entered as 3d but his good results suggest Euro 4d would be correct rank) in a pretty close game with ups and downs, and then beat a (good) 2d by 1.5 after a big moyo game (which featured tenuki of 2 stones in 5-3 high approach we talked about with Bill from my game with Surin).

Here are the games with a few comments from me/opponent/Catalin Taranu.

In the first game, why isn't aji keshi?

It was considered aji keshi until Alphago played it - seems like idea is that even though there are potentially other local moves there they aren't usually played so there's not much loss in making the exchange now. Might be losing a threat but in exchange getting that trade in now also makes black's group stronger (later white might resist instead of connect).

All this is above my level so would be happy to hear corrections/additional comments.

Edit: Uberdude - for variation at move 23 in first game, could the aji around E14 (in addition to white's emergency move at B12) be the reason?

As illluck said, AlphaGo has caused a re-evaluation of that peep: if you'd asked a year ago I would have said yes it's aji keshi and pros don't do that (actually there are a small number of examples pre-2016), but now it's a very popular pro move thanks to AlphaGo playing it vs Lee Sedol in game 2. If black later wants to tenuki from that group or do some fast-paced opening probing before adding a move, that peep can come in handy to make the group more resilient in future attacks and you might not be able to get it later, for example after white's c12 like in my game (e.g. if you peep after c12 white might just connect at b14 (though some atari problems) and it also helps cover the e13 cut in those shapes), or resist with the e14 counter peep (e.g. viewtopic.php?p=86128#p86128). Another issue is if white answers not with the solid connection but tries to be faster/more efficient with g18/17 then not only does that have a downside of the push and cuts being ko threats, but black b15 becomes semi-sente (c17 wedge is a tesuji followup) which makes it harder to play the c12 invasion.

That peep is now also sometimes played in what I call the AlphaGo opening (from game 5), for example Takao Shinji vs Iyama Yuta in the Meijin final game (viewtopic.php?p=212631#p212631). I did that (and he didn't resist) in my 3rd game vs Kim Seongjin 7d (photo by Marek Labos: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater).

As for that f12 connection, it's the normal pro move (and usually black hasn't made the peep) so better as I thought, I must have misremembered or confused it with another situation to think the other connection was standard.

P.S. Marek's London photo album: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id ... =3&qsefr=1

I'm hoping Mike Novack might come on in this as he explains AI rather well, but if we look at the peep (B13, Game 1) first, there are about 100 non-AlphaGo games with this, going back 50 years. The side making the peep has a win rate of 51.5%. Presumably that's quite significant to a pro, but is it the sort of datum that AlphaGo is actually using?

Interestingly, during the last year there has been a trend for the peepee to make the counter-peep before answering the peep. No doubt the number of games is too small to be significant (10), but in those games the counter-peeper has a 60% win rate.

Good games.

Off-topic, but I'd find this a bit off-putting:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100733601169541&set=oa.1865672516977709&type=3&theater

When AlphaGo's policy network was first trained, it was trained to match human moves when given positions from human games, full stop. It didn't care who won the original games. Afterwards it improved its network solely through self-play. So it never used the data of how often a move worked, only how often a move was played.

From my experience using Waltheri, 51.5% is not a particularly interesting win rate for a move (I see plenty of moves that seem to be reasonably common despite having a win rate of under 45%, for example).

By this I assume you mean a very-localised search of the peep, rather than this early peep before extending along the side. If I search my slightly old GoGoD for this peep in an otherwise empty quadrant there are only 4 hits (1961, 1964, 2004, 2008). The 1961 one (from Go Seigen) can be dismissed as a non-open position as although that quadrant is empty it is move 100+ and just beyond there are huge walls. ez4u posted about 2 of the others here. So I think it's fair to say AlphaGo's peep is different from those 100 and is behind the current popularity of it. But if you are making the point that the peep locally is not a new move and has a slightly >50% win rate so could that be part of why AlphaGo likes it that's an interesting idea, but I think probably not as 1) I'm still not sure what the AlphaGo initial training set for the policy network was but I think it was more KGS/Tygem games than pro ones, and 2) after those human games there were far more self-play ones so I doubt those 3 extra wins would have much effect.

I've still not done much study or tried to get 5d on KGS, but I went to another tournament yesterday (Maidenhead) and won it. Below is game 2 vs Min Yang 4d, lots of interesting fighting and comments in the sgf. I was reasonably please with how I played. The last game was a rather lucky win against Jesse Savo 4d going on 5d from Finland with his endgame blunder and rather less happy with my scrappy play in that game, will post soon. Any comments appreciated.



Final vs Jesse Savo 4d:

Your theoretical finish in the second game is B+1.5 according to GoEye (so your 64 rather than 62?). At 147 though White missed a chance. White can atari the three stones and Black can not push through the gap between 144 and 146 due to shortage of liberties. This would gain 2 points versus the game. Again (in the theoretical line) when Black plays the atari on Q18, shouldn't White exchange M3 for M2 before answering at Q19?

In the actual game it looks like Black can ignore 182 and cut immediately, winning the fight on the right side. So White does not have time to play 182. If Black gets to block in the corner, I think Black will certainly win.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Ah yes, I hadn't seen that. Maybe my 145 would be better to simply h14 or h15, but I didn't like the idea of his h12 peep or j12 attach with the bad aji at g10 and only had about 7 seconds per move, but didn't realise it gave him g12 in sente so he could g10 anyway. Luckily it seemed my f10 clamp did actually work to limit the damage, he spent a bit of time there reading out if he could extend and make some mess inside.


Yes, but I was quickly putting in those exchanges which are black's privilege, so I could play m3 myself there and it should be the same unless he plays the r19 1 point reverse sente next.[/quote]


Hmmm, isn't my corner locally a ko, no time to read semeais! I did answer o18 with s15 though to aim at the cut or at a minimum q12 in sente and he has to connect so I get the 2 stones (but he gets 1 in the middle plus 2 dame so not so amazing).

Thanks for the comments. Did you have any thoughts on the top right fight (e.g. moves 15, 19, 25, 27, 29)?

Analysis courtesy of Remi's Crazy-sensei at 4d level, I'll update with my conclusions. But the first most surprising thing is it thinks I was ahead all game: I thought my result on the top right fighting was a disaster! This is only 4d level analysis though, let's see what 6d thinks.

https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game

Here is 6d level analysis: https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game

CS thought black was ahead from the beginning, this may be because I didn't specify the komi in the SGF so maybe it is reading the 0 and thus black leads from the beginning. It shows the black win rate rising at the start of the first fight but then falling back to 50% when Jesse broke through the top right side so with komi maybe it thinks I am losing.

Remi confirmed it does read the komi (so I guess no value network which is trained on a specific komi like AlphaGo, or does he do some clever thing to allow changing komi), so, at the risk of being repetitive but also conducting an interesting test, I uploaded a new sgf with the real 6.5 komi on 4d level. This does now better match my feelings during the game that I was leading in the early fight with his funny shape, but then losing once he broke through to the side. CS then thinks I grew a lead with his passive play as I develop the left centre area but then could have lost it if he connected the 2 stones on top around move 115, but as he didn't my lead came back. Then lost it down to even or so with the loss of the 2 stones at the lower left but then cam back again and now that the komi is correct CS agrees that his push (move 183) letting the group die was the biggest mistake of the game (before it didn't highlight that as particularly bad which surprised me), and that my failure to cut one move earlier as ez4u suggested was my biggest mistake. So it's important to set the correct komi for reliable analysis! The analysis is sometimes a bit confusing though because it wants to play some sente sequences earlier than we did: with regards to the endgame relating to life and death on the right side this could be better than what we played, but sometimes I think it is MCTS bad habit of liking to play sente exchanges too early.

Crazy Sensei 4d7komi (Maidenhead tournament has komi bidding, I can't actually remember exactly what komi this one was) analysis of my 2nd game (I was white): https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game.

That big mistake from me then him around move 54 was my s17 seems to be overplay as not truly sente for him to make 2 eyes: seems he can play s15 and win the semeai.

And analysis of my game from the London Open against Kim Seongjin 7d. https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game. I'm interested to see what it thinks of my funky centre jump and the lower right corner joseki. Turns out it actually preferred white (me) pretty much the whole game! It's not a fan of the shimari on move 5, guess it thinks it's too slow. With the ko disaster at the end it thought the game only went back to even, rather than good for black (and didn't find Kim's 2-1 tesuji for better ko).

And vs Haylee: https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game. I forgot to fix the sgf to move the game to mainline though so it's not of the whole game.

Last month I had two challenging games in the European Team Championship: against Mateusz Surma of Poland and Pavol Lisy of Slovakia, both European 1 dan pros. I'm feeling a bit disappointed with how they went: in both I played slowly and did fairly okay in the opening and early middlegame but then entered overtime and self-destructed. This was a semi-sub-conscious decision in that I expected to lose so managed my time badly (aka taking time to (over)think about interesting positions I enjoy). Maybe I shouldn't expect to lose: I think I was actually beating Pavol for a fair while when we played last year and I have occasionally scored upset wins against strong players, but it's also not getting my (free) money's worth of a teaching game. Anyway, here are the games with my synopsis plus more detailed move comments and Crazy Sensei 4d analysis:


https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&g ... ation=game



https://www.crazy-sensei.com/?lang=en&l ... 106&move=0

Detail:
- normal move is take, but I have seen this one before. Result seems ~fair. But maybe Pavol wanted to take cash because I won't be as good at using influence.
- this middle-game joseki respects the wall by not wedging where you have miai 2-space extensions.
- pincer this side or above? I think this one is more common (even though making territory with wall) due to b cramped. Worth noting though that often with this wedge and a big wall below black has the corner (e.g. if black captured instead of connect and then 3-3 joseki) so this extension also serves as making eyes for the wall, but here the lower left corner is open so is available for potential eyes for my wall. Thus maybe c14 more plausible.
- normally black 23 is first attach under at b10 as a probe: normally white hanes behind, but if white cuts and b12 push to resist then black jumps to c14 and white ends up wanting to help the corner and b9, so doing this first is maybe a mistake? I answered as normal planning to then b11 and b12 push if he plays b10 next trying to turn it into a mistake, but I didn't expect his attach on top which was presumably him realising his play out of order means I wouldn't revert to joseki.
- agressive!
- big think trying to work out how to get out/settle with good shape. Also considered c14 trying to get b11 peep but read it didn't work (not sente, he can c15 and cut, or he can c9 sacrifice to get b11 sente himself). f16 g16 g17 was another idea trying to sacrifice to get sente strength and then attack side group, but makes him strong and lame attack.
- I can't capture at b14, but I did wonder about a sacrifice and then e12 (if f10 then f11) try to kill below and chase into wall but seemed impossible.
- relieved he didn't push and cut.
- Big decision. Here or k16. I can't remember if I thought/hoped this was sente, but it seems to only be sente for a seki because black c15 is sente. So probably wrong. But CS likes it.
- honte, but is it too slow given b's lead on territory and my influence? But if I q5 now black can play here to attack me and q5 loses and attacking meaning on r9.
- try to catch up points. Treat as miai with other corner thanks to honte before.
- maybe I should kosumi to live in corner?
- shcizophrenic, in overtime now and my game loses balance.
- w100: this was a get one of 15 moves in 1 minute down move, but I think it's actually sente to kill left as c15 no longer sente.
- w104: retarded, just live at L19 you dumbass!

I've not really done much study yet, so this month I joined BIBA's new online league (http://www.bibabaduk.net/index.php?p=pLeague). I'm at the bottom of the top group of 8 (not so tough opponents in Inseong's) so should get good games, plus the reviews/lectures/problems/teaching games. This should be good preparation for the British Open in early April, and British Candidates in early May (but I might be away for that). Also there's the Cambridge tournament this weekend. Now to work through these rather difficult 24 problems by Monday!

the online school seems cool. The left vs Pavol is unconditional life, B can give up the two stones