A beginner's journal of little interest

[Boidhre]

Just to highlight how crap I am at blitz and thinking under time pressure and how poor my instincts are:

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1988

My play in the bottom right is closer to 25k than 20k to be honest.

[topazg]

Move 18 - Find something better than M16, and why?

[Boidhre]

Move 18 - Find something better than M16, and why?

I prefer H11 now for connection reasons. That might be too passive though.

[topazg]

Move 18 - Find something better than M16, and why?

I prefer H11 now for connection reasons. That might be too passive though.

What's wrong with J15 for those same reasons?

[Boidhre]

Move 18 - Find something better than M16, and why?

I prefer H11 now for connection reasons. That might be too passive though.

What's wrong with J15 for those same reasons?

I considered that too but failed to appreciate it's importance as a cutting stone.

[Boidhre]

An interesting game with a friend who I was playing at 9 stones with and losing 2 months ago:

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1990

Again, I missed a very ugly ko in the corner. I really need to improve my spotting of these. He's coming back after a few months away from the game, so he was a bit rusty.

[Boidhre]

Picked up First Fundamentals by Robert, I was interested in it after reading the sample pages. I can't resist having more books. Whether or not they actually make me stronger is something I don't know but I enjoy reading them so that's what matters really.

I'm coming off Trileptal, today was my first day on only 600mg (was on 1500mg two weeks ago for the past 8 years). I feel a bit groggy and out of it, so I didn't play any go. I should be on Lithium within a month, we'll see how that goes. I'm hopeful that it'll improve my quality of life demonstrably and that I'll have more stability in my life.

[Boidhre]

I'm finding it so hard to find moves with this lowering of medication. Honestly, it feels like playing with a headful of cotton wool or a bad hangover.

Anyway, here's a game from today, of particular note is the move which took me a minute to come up with which was absolutely dreadful. I'm just having these breaks in play where no move occurs to me and I'm just staring at the board as if I was 30k again. Usually, while I play bad moves fairly often, I have some idea what I'm at least trying to do but today I'm having these moments of being completely lost without an inkling of what to do.

Ignore the taunt at the start, it's part of a fun league on Kaya where one of the rules is that you taunt your opponent at the start of the game. It's all a bit of fun really.

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1997

I felt white resigned far too early. I'm only posting this game as an example of my state of mind at the moment rather than for review as it's so short. White got a superb result in the bottom right though, I really need to work on my corner play.

[topazg]

36 looks good to me, it was 40 that looked suspicious

I'll post more later

[Boidhre]

Bah, wrong direction. then atari my way into his moyo. I'm really not thinking clearly today.

[topazg]

Bah, wrong direction. then atari my way into his moyo. I'm really not thinking clearly today.

Instead of N10, M8 is simple. if he plays N10 himself, then bO6 + bM6 catches him in a net.

[Boidhre]

Bah, wrong direction. then atari my way into his moyo. I'm really not thinking clearly today.

Instead of N10, M8 is simple. if he plays N10 himself, then bO6 + bM6 catches him in a net.

Thank you, I miss the simplest of things.

[Bill Spight]

A few comments.

BTW, you did not play so badly.

(;SZ[19]FF[4]AP[GOWrite:2.2.21]ST[2]CA[ISO8859-1]GM[1]KM[-5.5]WR[8k]GN[8kvsBoidhre]RE[B+Resignation]RU[Japanese]PM[0]HA[3]PW[White]PB[Boidhre]FG[775:]BR[11k]AB[dd][dp][pd]OT[fischer 20]C[ ]
;W[pp]WL[874.7]C[Boidhre\[11k\]\: may you misread frequently and severely
]
;BL[909.6]B[qn]
;W[ql]WL[872.9]
;BL[922.6]B[on]
;W[np]WL[890.4]
;BL[938.2]B[pk]
;W[pl]WL[855.5]
(
;BL[939.0]B[rp]C[ *** Not so good. See variation.]
(
;W[pn]WL[744.2]C[*** See variation.]
(
;BL[937.2]B[pm]C[*** Think about shape. See variation.]
;W[po]WL[762.7]
;BL[870.1]B[qm]
;W[om]WL[774.5]
;BL[889.0]B[ol]
;W[nm]WL[793.4]
(
;BL[908.0]B[qk]C[*** See variation.]
(
;W[qq]WL[810.4]C[*** See variations.]
(
;BL[911.2]B[ok]C[*** Unnecessary. See variation.]
;W[jd]WL[575.7]
(
;BL[894.7]B[mc]C[*** Not a bad idea. See variation.]
;W[fd]WL[588.5]
;BL[898.2]B[df]
;W[cj]WL[524.4]
(
;BL[911.0]B[ch]C[*** Small. See variation.]
;W[dn]WL[539.4]
;BL[896.6]B[fq]
;W[cp]WL[528.2]
;BL[913.8]B[cq]
;W[co]WL[547.2]
;BL[932.5]B[bq]
;W[hq]WL[564.1]
;BL[906.0]B[fo]C[*** Unnecessary.]
;W[ho]WL[540.1]
(
;BL[844.1]B[ec]C[*** Strengthens White. See variation.]
;W[fc]WL[548.5]
;BL[794.1]B[ml]C[*** A good idea. Play on the frontier of frameworks. Black would like to make a deeper incursion, but that would lead to a very difficult fight.]
;W[nl]WL[378.2]C[*** Reducing his own liberties. Not so good.]
;BL[811.1]B[nk]
;W[mk]WL[394.3]
(
;BL[829.9]B[mj]C[*** Sacrificing the Black stones. See variation.]
;W[lk]WL[412.9]
;BL[847.7]B[lj]
;W[kk]WL[431.7]
(
;BL[840.8]B[qe]C[*** See variation. End of com]
;W[le]WL[443.8]
;BL[803.3]B[ne]
;W[lg]WL[428.3]
;BL[797.0]B[ng]
;W[ff]WL[445.7]
;BL[787.5]B[eh]
;W[ej]WL[460.4]
;BL[804.4]B[gh]
;W[gm]WL[463.8]
;BL[789.8]B[jb]
;W[ep]WL[357.4]
;BL[757.4]B[eo]
;W[rq]WL[321.7]
;BL[754.6]B[ro]
;W[bp]WL[332.4]
;BL[755.1]B[hc]
)
(
;B[kj]
(
;W[jk]
;B[jb]C[*** Use thickness to attack.]
)
(
;W[jj]
;B[lm]
;W[nn]
;B[jk]
;W[jl]
;B[ik]
;W[kl]
;B[jb]
)

)

)
(
;B[ll]
(
;W[mj]
;B[nn]
;W[mm]
;B[ln]
)
(
;W[nn]
;B[lj]C[*** Difficult for White.]
;W[mj]C[*** If White tries to run]
;B[mi]
;W[nj]
;B[lk]C[*** White is weak, Black is strong.]
)

(
;W[lk]
;B[kl]
;W[nn]
;B[kj]
(
;W[mi]
;B[mj]
;W[lj]
;B[li]
;W[nj]
;B[kk]
;W[mj]
;B[mh]
)
(
;W[li]
;B[lj]
;W[mj]
;B[mi]
;W[nj]
;B[ni]
;W[oj]
;B[kk]C[*** Difficult for White.]
)

(
;W[mj]
;B[kk]
;W[mh]
;B[jo]
;W[jq]
;B[li]
;W[mi]
;B[lf]
)

)

)

)
(
;B[qe]C[*** If you want to make territory, this is bigger.]
)

)
(
;B[cm]
)

)
(
;B[md]C[*** Better for making a framework.]
)

)
(
;B[rl]C[*** This is better. Still unnecessary, though.]
)

)
(
;W[rl]C[*** White has this threat.]
;B[rk]C[*** Bad.]
;W[qo]
(
;B[ro]
;W[rn]C[*** Oops!]
)
(
;B[rn]
;W[ro]
;B[so]
;W[nl]
;B[ok]
;W[rq]
)

)

)
(
;B[rl]C[*** The ladder is more secure.]
)

)
(
;B[po]
;W[pm]C[*** Bad shape for White.]
;B[oo]
(
;W[qo]C[*** Does not work.]
;B[qp]
)
(
;W[op]
;B[ok]C[*** Very bad for White.]
)

)

)
(
;W[ok]
)

)
(
;B[ol]C[*** Block White!]
)

)

[Boidhre]

Thank you for the review Bill.

[Boidhre]

My concentration is improving a bit as my body adjusts to the lower dose of Trileptal. I played *really* badly last night, very passively, very unimaginatively, quite similar to how I play when depressed actually which I found interesting. This morning I was able to fit in an hour of tsumego without any concentration problems so I'm hopeful the worst of the concentration problems are over. Next week I drop to 300mg Trileptal and then two weeks later 0mg. It'll probably be fairly rough but hopefully not as bad as the drop from 1200mg to 600mg.

In go news, was working on problems from wBaduk this morning. They're quite interesting. I'm doing the pre-Intermediate Easy problems following the advice of doing many easy problems rather than few hard ones. I'll go back to Get Strong at Tesuji this evening, again working on the easier one and two star problems. I'll try and get some games in at some point too but this depends on my wife and the kids and all that.