Three Month Trial (Hailthorn's Third Journal)

[hailthorn011]

This game was embarrassing. Not only did I mess up the left side due to lack of global awareness, I tried to kill with dead stones!

[skydyr]

On the left, after move 54, black can force at A9 and then push through the C4 gap because white doesn't have enough liberties to block.

When white approached the top right, however, I think it was from the wrong direction, because it induces black to play a strong low stone on the side where it neutralizes white's influence somewhat. After that, white tenukied from that stone, so you could look forward to a strong attack on it later if white doesn't reinforce. I suspect it was played as a ladder breaker for exactly the kind of cut you saw in your joseki, so if you want to break it, perhaps an unorthodox response like n16 for black was in order, instead of R14. Black could also double approach the bottom left instead, as the two situations are fairly miai. If white responds and black ends in sente, it's a clear win when black returns to the top right first.

[SoDesuNe]

Some comments, ideas etc. : )



I'm not a fan of re-approaching in the bottom left by the way. I think with the open skirt, the value of this side is pretty low.

[hailthorn011]

Some comments, ideas etc. : )



I'm not a fan of re-approaching in the bottom left by the way. I think with the open skirt, the value of this side is pretty low.

Thanks for the review! Easy to understand.

He noted I might have fared better if I had taken into consideration the ladder breaker at the top right. And you point out things I definitely feel I should be seeing. Maybe tsumego should have more prevalence in my studying regimen than I thought.

[hailthorn011]

Today started off pretty bad. I was on a seven game losing streak, so I didn't have high expectations going into the KGS tournament today. Fortunately, I managed to go 2-1 today in tournament play. My opponents were ranked: 11k, 3d, and 4k.

But I'm not satisfied with my overall play. I feel like I'm still playing more like an 8 Kyu or weaker at times. And my win against the 11k was probably lucky. I wonder if he should have just taken the Ko.

I guess I feel these were nothing but luck. Either way, I do feel better going into the last two games tomorrow.

Anyway, here are the tournament games:

Game 1


Game 2


Game 3

[billywoods]

Game 1:

• I prefer at E17. Then white connects, black E18, white B18 (to avoid being captured), black D13 (to fix the cut at E16), white C12 (to avoid being sealed in). White gets ten points in the corner in gote, black gets big outside thickness.
• : why?
• : your group at the top is very heavy. You can't afford to tenuki; if white gets sente out of this (which he should if he follows joseki), you're in trouble, and if you leave your new group unfinished to go back to your top group, you have two weak groups.
• : unnecessary (and maybe not sente - not sure). ( was unnecessary too.)
• : ends up in a broken shape (as you saw). Maybe D8 instead - it threatens a reduction on the left. H8 is a local vital shape point for both.
• 113 : why not N10 to take the territory? Don't risk it all to kill a stone.
• 195, 205, 211: wasted opportunities - you seem to play too fast in endgame, taking gote unnecessary and even missing large ataris.

[hailthorn011]

This was the only tournament game I was able to play today. I have to leave very soon. I have to leave so I can go watch the Royal Rumble.

But more to the point, I feel I would have had better success if was at M9 instead. Eventually I fudged things up like usual playing lousy moves. 's bottom was too huge and I really should have played down there.

Then there was the failure to connect my top left group with the rest of my stones resulting in death. I also wonder if my play at the top right was correct. What I read came to fruition and that was exactly the position I wanted as it gave me the opportunity to capture a huge center (IE before I screwed things up) and I feel at that point I was successful in that endeavor. Of course that could have just been bad for me.

I would also like to point out though that there were several times where I almost played terrible moves, worse than the ones I played I mean, but I stopped myself and questioned what the purpose of said move was.

So really, I feel like I'm learning at a very slow step by step process. Hopefully soon I'll be playing at a decent enough level.

Signed, Little Timmy (From the bottom of the well)

[billywoods]

: Blocked on the wrong side, I think - there's no need to build thickness towards the bottom side, because there's already a strong white group there taking away your potential to attack anything or make points. (For this reason, why not just at F3?)
: Clamp is okay, but look at what white does after you play it - you gain nothing but a reduction of a few points, and now you can't play B18 in sente (white will hane at B19, as you saw later, to remove your eyes). If you're worried, just B18 directly.

[SoDesuNe]

Just some quick comments : )

Overall I think you fell behind in the opening. But then White played some strange moves and you could have had a huge center by attacking White's weak group but you played too timid. In the end White just outfought you in the center.

[hailthorn011]

A new month brings new things and new goals! I managed to achieve 3 of my goals last month:
-Participate in the KGS tournament -Check-
-Play enough games to remain in Delta League -Check-
-Watch Iyama Yuta's games -Check-

The only one I failed was winning Game 3 of my series with Twitchy Go and Game 4 was postponed. Hopefully by the time that game rolls around I'll have improved. Which takes me to my next point: I seriously need to improve my opening if I'm going to get better. Aside from silly middle to end game mistakes, I believe this is my weakest area.

So I plan on spending a lot of time learning joseki in the fuseki and learning their applications. Why is this joseki superior in Situation A, and why is this Joseki better in Situation B? And why is the Joseki from Sit. A not ideal in Sit. B? And I feel I'm at a level where I can at least understand that much.I also have some study tools to assist there. Like Lovelove's fantastic lectures and Opening Theory Made Easy.

Another goal is to get out of the Delta League and advance to a higher league. This is very possible if I play consistently.

My final goal is to reach 4 Kyu on KGS. This is my biggest goal for the month. And I feel it is wholly possible if I really work on improving my fuseki. But I think I figured out why none of the things I'm being told in review are helping: I'm not playing enough games. I play a game, get a review, read over it. And then do something else. My problem is I'm not giving myself enough time to reflect properly and then apply what I've learned. So this is something I am going to work on fixing.

[Bill Spight]

Since tsumego were suggested, I can add that to my list. But I want to ask one thing about problems, is it okay if you don't get them on your first try?

I use SmartGo and it automatically tells you if you're doing it right or wrong with each move you play. So I'm under the impression it's better to get it on your first try.

Any thoughts?

If you get them on your first try they are too easy. Generally speaking, the optimum level is where you get around half of them on your first try.

But please remember that getting the first move right may not mean getting the problem right. You have to get every move right.

BTW, I wouldn't like a program giving feedback on every move. If you can't turn that feature off, let Anders know.

[p2501]

I suggest you to do some more tsumego at your level. You can easily go through 1 amateur dan purely with tsumego, even though you may know nothing about joseki or other theories.
[edit] Are you still planning to become pro?

I second that.

Besides playing a lot:

Opening Theory Made Easy is likely enough about the opening until high sdk.
Reading game commentaries by pros will further your general game sense / thinking. (go game guru has a lot of them for free)
And then a lot of tsumego. I would suggest 65% easy, 25% middle, 10% hard.

[hailthorn011]

I'm not sure how to feel about this game. On one hand, I feel it was a good result. But on the other hand, I can't help but feel my opponent missed key moves that enabled me to get the results I wanted.

[EdLee]

[hailthorn011]

Well, the last few days have been pretty bad. Stanley (my cat) was in an obvious bad state of health last week, so we took him to the vet on Saturday. He hadn't really been eating and had been behaving strangely. And we found out why at the vet: He had cat aids. And yes, it's pretty similar to the kind that afflicts humans. So I didn't really have any choice but to put him down. It really was a hard choice to make.

Stanley was a great friend.

That being said, I haven't played Go at all recently. But I'm going to try and play a few games today.