A beginner's journal of little interest

[EdLee]

[Boidhre]

Ed:

I had planned the cut. I chickened out thinking that my inside group would just be far too weak.

Point very well taken. I was not happy with the result following this move in the game.

I was overly concerned with life and this was very gote. My group has access to the centre and one eye if I don't play this move, perhaps I can approach the top right here?

(b) seems to be more common. Reduces his moyo better and gives a group with one eye and access to the centre.

(b) is far weaker. I hadn't seen this move before and didn't see the threat of the crosscut a few moves on. Inexperience and poor reading on my part.

I had read it didn't work but I became transfixed with having aji there. I also thought running with that stone would have been a bad idea.

I bottled it.

:b105: Yes, I can just nobi to the first line, his cut doesn't work.

Thank you very much for the review Ed.

[EdLee]

Very welcome.

You have to read it out before deciding to push. Also, this is a very common shape. Study it.
Another standard exchange (when your D5 stone is pincered). Remember it.
First, what's the status of your group?
Q14 (the double keima) is a standard shape to fix the R16-R12 three-space jump on the 3rd line.
If you'd already read it didn't work, then don't do it. R12 has aji even without (which only made it more heavy).
105: I think T17 is not nobi but sagari (descend), but I'm not sure. Also, you have to read not only the R17 cut
but also the R18 extend and Q18 jump.

[Bill Spight]

Got mauled in an even game tonight in Kaya's ASR league but I learned a nice bit I think. AS you can see my guesstimation method of counting sucks. All I knew was that I was losing by *a lot* and took a stab at around 40. Oh how wrong I was.

Wrong about what?

My opponent made a good point afterwards, I was spending too much time thinking of my own groups and not about his groups. Which I think is quite true in my general play.

The DDK disease. You used not to play that way. Get over it. Think about multi-purpose plays and about the local balance of stones, especially early in the game. Playing more than two stones more than your opponent in a local area is almost always wrong early in the game.

Comments:

[Boidhre]

Thank you Bill, very instructive. I meant I was wrong about the score by 30 points. I need to start counting properly.

[Boidhre]

Good day at the club, achieved my goal of beating the local EGF 2k on 9 stones at the second attempt today. Lost two other games. Overall happy with my progress. I was being murdered on 9 stones a month ago.

More interestingly, I got some advice from a KGS 4d to start laying problems out on a board before solving them in my head, he'd gotten the advice from a pro, it slows things down a lot but I think it might help with remembering shape. All I need now is the patience to solve problems this way. So I tried doing this at the club when we were down to 3 people and I had some time to kill. It's very interesting, I think I'm going to start doing it a lot more, I found I was paying far more attention to each stone's position having to lay it out myself rather than solving just in my head. I'm hoping it'll give me a better sense for shape and weaknesses in shape. It's a pity that gochild's problems are usually 11x11 and not suitable for any board I have. But the problems from 1001 L&D, Get Strong at Tesuji and Speed Baduk will all work well with this technique.

Study plan for the week ahead:

Kids are back at school, work at home is quiet so I'll have plenty of time to play games. I'm hoping to get 3 slow games in a day. On top of this I hope to continue with solving tsumego which is more kid friendly because my son will join in.

[Bill Spight]

Thank you Bill, very instructive. I meant I was wrong about the score by 30 points. I need to start counting properly.

OIC. I thought that you meant that you thought that you were behind at around move 40. You were.

[Boidhre]

Thank you Bill, very instructive. I meant I was wrong about the score by 30 points. I need to start counting properly.

OIC. I thought that you meant that you thought that you were behind at around move 40. You were.

Yeah it was a losing game. I disrespected my opponent by playing on for practice without asking first. I apologised after the game.

[Boidhre]

Game with topazg: I was lost for most of it, playing on instinct rather than having some grand plan which made for a very tough game mentally. Very tight, I'm sure I made a load of mistakes in this game.

[Bill Spight]

Thank you Bill, very instructive. I meant I was wrong about the score by 30 points. I need to start counting properly.

OIC. I thought that you meant that you thought that you were behind at around move 40. You were.

Yeah it was a losing game. I disrespected my opponent by playing on for practice without asking first. I apologised after the game.

I don't think that you disrespected your opponent by playing on. After all, you were playing even. (You could have resigned at move 1. )

[Bill Spight]

Nice game.



Main focus: Make multi-purpose plays.

[Boidhre]

No Bill, I haven't been studying just playing games, I really should knuckle down and do some study though. Thank you very much for the review.

[Boidhre]

On oren's suggestion I sat down and memorised a few (30) moves of a pro game. It was a lot of fun. I can see myself memorising the early/early middle part of games more often, I know that actually playing games would probably be better for gaining strength given my level but eh, this is fun!

[Boidhre]

I feel like indulging on some go purchases, nothing major just a little something to celebrate a few nice wins lately. But I'm unsure what to get. I know I probably own far too many books for my level already but I do like to indulge myself a bit now and then with some spending. Should I perhaps buy a few more problem books (since I love problems so much), perhaps buy myself a few lessons as a treat? Or maybe some nicer stones or bowls?

Any thoughts?

[EdLee]

Or maybe some nicer stones or bowls?

Yes.