So another game, I didn't know any of the joseki and my weak reading did the rest. All in all I feel like I got kinda stomped, so there probably was a rather large problem. Any help welcome.

Play at S-02, threatening R-05.

The crosscut gives options to White. Pulling back to L-04 would leave the two White stones weak.

Takes your eye off the ball. The fight on the bottom side is urgent. True, the Black stone on K-03 is weak, but the three White stones next to it are not yet settled. Even if you give that stone up, you should get something for the sacrifice. A running fight is another possibility.

Where to play is another question. Without the G-03 stone in place, J-04 is a normal attack. But it does not look so good in this situation. Perhaps the attachment at G-04 would be good. It has a diagonal relation to the K-03 stone. (E. g., via J-04 and H-03.) G-04 also looks at White’s weak corner.

- Haven’t we seen this before? Black is over-concentrated.

Timid.

Makes a large moyo, but allows what comes next.

Very painful.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

again with the double-posting error.
txt deleted to minimize thread damage.

I'm not anywhere near as good as most of the other players on this forum, but here is my humble attempt at analysis. I hope it helps.

Since I did this mainly as a learning exercise (I got to look up a couple of josekis! and figure out the best move to seal off an invasion!), I also included Bill Spight's comments above -- they are his, not mine -- and played around with the variations he recommended to see if I could get them to work.

I apologize that I am not a very good player, but I couldn't resist the challenge.

Hi Sam, I never use the SGF link feature.
I always embed the full SGF text directly in a post.
Did you check that your SGF link worked after you posted 204 ?
( As of now, it's not working properly, yet. )

Ed,

I did check it, and I checked it again, and it worked both times. However, since you are having a problem, just to be safe, I re-uploaded and re-linked to the new file. It is still working for me, but obviously this doesn't mean it will work for you.

Please hit F5 on your browser and let me know how it goes.

Thanks!
Sam

Work on that reading! For example, at 88 White plays the atari at 1 below and Black rescues the single stone with 'a'. Disaster follows.

It is not so much 'reading' as having some feeling for what matters. If Black simply captures the marked White stone with 2 and 4, White is in big trouble. The point is that taking the marked Black stone alone will not allow White to live, while taking the marked White stone leaves behind life at 'b' for Black. The best White can do is play to start a ko with the hane at 5. However this is a very easy ko for Black who can be happy just to live in White's area.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X . X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O O X X O . . . . . O . O O X . . . |
$$ | . . . O O . O . . , . . O X O X . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . X X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . X . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . X , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . . |
$$ | . . X X . X . . X X . . . . X O O . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . O O O X X X . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O X X O X O X O X O . X X O O . |
$$ | . . . . O O O . X X O O B a X O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . b X W 2 3 1 7 X O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . 6 5 8 O . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

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

Responses to Sam.



Edit: Corrected a variation, the one that avoids a ko.

Edit 2: To show my misread.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

So many variations =). Thanks, I already skipped through them and there is a lot to see, gotta take a closer look during my next study session.

@ez4u: Damn, the stuff you point out always seems so obvious it makes me question how I even managed to miss it during the game x.X
On the reading: The problem I have with it is that for improvement/time spent it comes out as one of the worst things, study wise(at least that's what I feel).



Anyway, enough of the loosing, I finally reached a new milestone. Since tygem hates me for some reason I decided to pay a visit to KGS again, and I just beat an SDK in an even game for the first time. (Also it contained a running fight in which I did not die horribly, which is an accomplishment in itself)

That's a very important point. Reading is so much more than the calculation of variations.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Congratulations!

A couple of quick comments.

OK, but since you got a timid reply, you can play elsewhere, such as the bottom right corner or playing a mini-Chinese on the bottom side. Also, locally D-15 is amusing.

gains nothing.

Extending once more on the third line is bigger than it looks. Later the Black formation becomes a silly clump of stones.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks, Bill! I wondered why I couldn't get that move you suggested to work right.

Haven't posted in a while. So all my accounts are slowly but steadily going towards SDK and I've been winning a lot lately, but every now and then I still hit a road bump. This game is one of em. I managed to win, but it was close and I think I was playing catch up most of the time(the fact that he played a crazy opening on short time controls didn't help). Also I realized my endgame is probably horrible for my level, but in this case my opponents was just as bad . Any comments appreciated.

On move you could force and squeeze black at S9 before defending at P12. Afterwards you can let S9 alone and still defend at P12. In the actual game position this makes a big difference since with the additional forcing move black can no more connect his S6 stones (with S9 in place, on black S8 you could play S7 in sente and then T7...). Thus, if you regularly watch out for such forcing moves before defending this will make you at least 3 stones stronger (that's a qualified guess ).

Edit: Well, in this specific position, b can connect his three S6 stones also to the bottom. Anyway - looking at forcing moves before doing some seemingly obvious defense move still is a good idea and BTW I'm a rather bad game reviewer

I think this game is a good one to review, because there is a lot to learn from.

To start with this looks big and scary, but it's really loose, and there's a lot of aji in the corner that black will have to deal with later. Nothing to worry about.

At move 14, it's vital that white move into the center, to prevent being sealed in. Being sealed in and living in gote is a fate worse than death.

For I'd rather extend down the left side to limit black, maybe to c10. Similarly, at , black doesn't extend nearly far enough, so I want to extend to c11 as white. A little closer to lessen the pressure of black's thickness.

At , black can connect under by attaching at b10. You can play e8 instead to prevent this and still get out somewhat. That said, this fight is why I didn't want to extend to c10 after .

At , one space to the right, on the third line, helps fix a lot of the aji. Also, notice that a few moves later, black is breaking white's shape horribly. This is a sign that something has gone awry.

would probably be better sealing black in at P14, forcing him to live locally, and connecting. When black takes this move, white's split into two and black has no weaknesses.

After that, I thought you did pretty well. You took both corners from black, and your endgame was okay. One key point, though, is that G1 was very big for white to connect his groups and not have to worry about playing inside his territory to make eyeshape later.

Thanks for the advice, reviews often remind me of stuff that I know about but fail to apply in my games (in this case that moving out is better than living small, jumping along the side to prevent a connection underneath and squeezing even if a capture is not possible. Especially the last one bugs me, I think I overlook that in every single game I post here )

There's quite a bit to tell about the opening, especially how and why you got into trouble at the left side, but I'll leave that to Bill.

I second the above suggestion for to capture some Black stones at the expense of your own three stones. But I don't think that's where the game went wrong.

At the game is at least even. The left side is still the hottest area. Yet Black invades at

leads to a broken shape at and invites another broken shape which is accomplished at

Here the game is completely shifted in Black's favour, due to allowing your stones to be disconnected in such ugly fashion. Now your left side is still weak but the right side has also become weak, while this was your sphere of influence.

What was the reasoning behind moves like and and allowing Black to cut your position to pieces with ? If you understand why you play these moves, you can probably avoid them next time. Or maybe you did not think of the result after as being problematic?

Cheers!

In the game when Black plays 217 at below, White answers at . Black played at 'a' next. But what happens if Black plays 3 below? It looks like White is dead to me. It seems that White has to answer 1 with something like 3.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc White dies?
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . . . X X X X O O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . X . . O O O X X O . . . |
$$ | . O O , O X . . X O . . . . . O O O O |
$$ | . X X O O X . X . X O . . O O X O X O |
$$ | . O O X X . X X . X O . O X X X X X . |
$$ | . . X X O X X O . O . . . . . O . X . |
$$ | . X X O . O O . O . . . O O O O X . . |
$$ | . O X O O . . . O X . . O . . O X . . |
$$ | . . O X O O O O X X . X O O O X . X . |
$$ | . X X X . X X O O X . . X X O X X . . |
$$ | X . X X X . O X X O . . X O . O O X . |
$$ | X . . . X . O . X O . . X O . . . . . |
$$ | X . X X O X . . X X . X O O O X X X . |
$$ | X X X O O O X X O . X X X X O O X O . |
$$ | X O O , O X X X O a O X O X . O O X . |
$$ | O . O O . X X O . . O X O . X . O X . |
$$ | . O . . O O X O 2 3 . O O O X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . X O . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

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

Good thing that for once my opponent matched my reading skills^^.

And a new game, another close win, but I feel like I should have lost. I managed to cut of a group in the middle and after that it was close, so I was probably behind for the most part, which tells me I have still some very basic issues that need to be taken care of. For those who want to point out a few, here is the game:

Some general ideas:
1. Try to attack for profit - not just for the sake of attacking
2. Some more reading - you played shape points a couple of times when there was no way to live. Don't just play the cool move - read it out
(I lost more games to "wouldn't it be cool if" than I'd like to count)
3. Endgame - nothing too complex - just try to play sente moves first. Beyond that maybe read up on it a little and learn about the value of reverse sente. It's not sexy but a little endgame attention can get you a few points (2-5) most games, which won't win every game - but will win a few more.

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