First Winning Game against GNU-Go 9H

[tynan]

It was very close, but I changed my strategy a bit and played on the 3rd Line more often in the opening, which drastically changed the outcome. I also resisted the temptation to confront White stones directly, maintaining a stand-off until I felt the need to answer directly. The result was White was pushed into a thin, constricted area while Black secured thickness.

[TheBigH]

Congrats! I think you can still afford to chase white around a little harder; this will help you in the long run because it will cause you to get into fights and improve your reading. Quietly accumulating territory is nice, but doing nothing but that is imbalanced.

[Bill Spight]

I also resisted the temptation to confront White stones directly, maintaining a stand-off until I felt the need to answer directly.

That attitude will, I am afraid, not get you very far. Sure, White, whether human or computer program, can probably beat you up in fights. But that gives you opportunities to learn. Sakata recommended trying to kill White groups, and I agree. When I started out I fought like hell, and I am glad that I did. Sure, I lost a lot of fights and groups, but I learned a lot, too.

A few comments.

[schawipp]

On move 36 you played an empty triangle (actually move 36 makes two empty treeangle shapes simultaneously), which in ~99% of the cases is not the most effective shape. In the actual case, it gave white time to enter the upper left corner and neutralize many points there. With the correct reply, you could have prevented that. Look up the keywords "Monkey Jump" and "Empty Triangle" (e. g. on http://senseis.xmp.net) in order to find out how it works!

[SoDesuNe]

First of all congratulations on your win! =)

I also resisted the temptation to confront White stones directly, maintaining a stand-off until I felt the need to answer directly.

I feel slightly responsible for this because of my post in your last thread, where I wrote that you should not attack lonely stones by a play which strengthens them. That does not mean you shouldn't attack, when you have the chance though ^^
Generelly speaking you should always attack from a distance, mostly by keeping one empty space between your stone and the opponent's. This page on Sensei's Library has good advice for attacking: http://senseis.xmp.net/?AttackingAdvice

Everything else you can find in Bill Spight's review : )

[tynan]

I feel slightly responsible for this because of my post in your last thread, where I wrote that you should not attack lonely stones by a play which strengthens them. That does not mean you shouldn't attack, when you have the chance though ^^
Generelly speaking you should always attack from a distance, mostly by keeping one empty space between your stone and the opponent's. This page on Sensei's Library has good advice for attacking: http://senseis.xmp.net/?AttackingAdvice

Everything else you can find in Bill Spight's review : )

Thanks. That game was, in fact, the first win on a 19x19 ever (including face-to-face games). There are a LOT of points on the board, 361 total, and the difference between life and death could be just one space over from where your instincts tell you lol.
Chess is starting to look strange to me now (even inferior?), the more I learn about Go.

[lightvector]

Overall, nice win this game!

I'd tend to agree with what other people have said, and say that as long as it's still fun for you, it can't hurt to fight with white a little more often, particularly when you have the advantage. Although you might lose a little more in short run, if you can learn to fight effectively, it can be very helpful in the long run.

Bill covered the first part of the game very nicely, so here are a few more comments and tactical exercises involving later parts of the game, if you're still interested.

Move 43: With the right sequence, you can kill white's C17 stone here. Can you see how?

Move 50: Although white didn't do this in the game, he can kill either D2, E3, or D4 if he plays correctly. Can you see how? Note that this also means that on move 48, Black would have preferred to connect solidly at D3 to avoid this. As a heuristic, you should avoid leaving a gap like D3 right in front of an opponent's stone, unless one or both of your stones on the sides of the gap are very strong.

Move 82: Same idea - don't leave a gap in front of white's stone. Q3 and R4 are much safer and simpler. Leaving the gap allowed white to cut and eventually capture the Q2 stones a few moves later.

Move 96: Can you find a better move than this? (Hint: you can capture a stone from white).

Move 122: In the game, white saved the F4 stones. Can you play differently here to prevent that?

Move 132: Not needed. You can just ignore white and play somewhere else. If white plays J16, you play K17, and if he plays K17, you play J16, so your stones are connected anyways.

Move 146: Also not needed. You can just play somewhere else. If white plays there, he would put himself in atari and then you could easily take.

A good exercise might be to see if you can find a few other defensive moves in the game that weren't needed (there should be at least 2-3 other fairly simple ones).