A beginner's journal of little interest

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 1:12 am

Your play has matured.

A few comments.

Main focus: Avoid strengthening your opponent's stones or weakening your own.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:37 pm

Another unfinished game, this time from a live match. Issues noted by both of us were a few timid/slack moves by me at crucial times and a general unwillingness to stick the knife in. There was a misread in there too but eh, that's less of a problem.

I'm not getting much study done at all, though my interest in the game is still there. I can lose myself for an hour in a game and not have any non-go-related thought enter my mind, which is nice.

Edit: The final move is an error. It ended with white's previous move.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:13 pm

A few comments.

Main focus: Look for plays that attack or threaten both sides, especially if they strengthen your own group.

mitsun · Post by **mitsun** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 11:32 am

Interesting game. You made good use of your initial advantage in the early part of the game, but then made too many slack moves later. Still, you were ahead until the "oops" blunder.

Bill already covered many of the early points of interest, so without duplicating too many of his comments ....

:w7:

has traditionally been considered the wrong direction, approaching from the narrow side. When I was a kyu player, I would have been strongly criticized for a move like this. In response, a pincer is tempting, but I think I would happily extend toward the more open side around R14 and let W make a narrow base on top.

:b16:

through

is a fantastic result for B, strongly punishing the W overplay. Now W is split into two weak groups, neither of which has room to make a base. B just has to run out to the center with his weak middle group and keep W split to take control of the game.

:w21:

was a clever move. If W was already planning the L15-M15-M14 continuation, he is quite strong. In the result up through move 37, W got out of trouble, but B got a very strong ponnuki in compensation. B still has a commanding position.

(At move 32, B could just connect at M16 to keep W separated and maintain the attack, but then W could run out at M13 and start a complicated fight. Giving up the attack to take the ponnuki and simplify the position seems like a good decision.)

:b48:

should block at R9. Yes, the books all say to use thickness to attack, but at some point you really are allowed to make territory. Actually, blocking would make territory while attacking. Compare that result to the result where W extends to R9 or S10, making W territory inside the B moyo while living. The territory difference is enormous. Also, blocking this side will force W to move in the other direction, which hurts the O3 stone. B would get a perfect splitting attack.

:b54:

is another slack move. It looks nice, but it allows the W group to the right to live easily by sliding into the corner. B should still be aiming for a splitting attack, starting by preventing W from making a base. Make territory while attacking; prevent your opponent from making territory while living.

:b62:

is terribly slack. You cannot win a handicap game this way. Blocking at R9 is the only move. This position makes a good full board problem -- spot the vital point.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 8:56 am

I haven't been ignoring this journal, I've just been doing poorly health wise and my concentration has been very weak which meant that I was playing games that really weren't worth wasting people's time with reviewing. Depression returned me to my old passive, not paying attention to the big picture self and it felt like I'd regressed by 5 or 6 stones (mainly the issue was, for the first 50-60 moves I could make a game of it but due to a lack of mental stamina due to depression/sleep disruption I quickly lost focus after that and things would start falling apart). Eh, crap happens. I'm starting a course of sleep therapy (it's going to take at least a month to get all the initial tests done before we start on any treatment) so hopefully that'll pay some dividends.

So, why am I posting? Well, the Irish Go Association is having a turn based tournament and I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a go and see if I can feel a spark for go and work on my concentration a bit (poor concentration is a vicious feedback loop, you stop doing complex mental activities because you can't concentrate well but your concentration naturally starts diminishing if you're not using it!).

But, in one of these games someone did something and my mind went, oh, no, that isn't what you're supposed to do...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B $$ , . . . . . , . . . | $$ . . . . . . . . . . | $$ . . . . . . . . . . | $$ . . . . . . . . . . | $$ . . . . . . . 6 . . | $$ . . . . . . 2 3 . . | $$ , . . . . . 4 5 . . | $$ . . . . . . 1 . . . | $$ . . . . . . . . . . | $$ . . . . . . . . . . | $$ --------------------+[/go]

Not a big deal, ok this guy is 2 stones stronger than what I claim to be EGF wise (I actually think I'm weaker than EGF 10k but whatever) but joseki error/basic shape error not such a huge thing. The thing was I'd built up this dialogue in my head that I was getting weaker, that I'd forgotten everything, that I shouldn't play this game because I get sick so often (i.e. eternally playing catch up after the regression during each depression). Yet here was something that I just knew should be played. Ingrained my sleep deprived mind a bit was shouting, oh no Sir you don't want to be doing that!

Then this happened in a different game against someone a bit stronger than the last opponent:

Now both of these are games that I could very easily lose. But in play against people somewhat stronger than me, to be able to exploit errors made me quite optimistic about go. I'm rusty definitely, my reading has gotten worse sure, but I still seem to have enough basic shape knowledge stuck in my head to spot these things. At the ranks I was imagining myself as having fallen back to I'd not have spotted the second one I'm pretty sure. Or I'd have not followed through etc.

I know that these are trivial things, but they were important for me to see I think.

skydyr · Post by **skydyr** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 10:13 am

I assume these games are ongoing and shouldn't be commented on for the moment?

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 10:14 am

skydyr wrote:I assume these games are ongoing and shouldn't be commented on for the moment?

Definitely. Thus the snippets.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 3:50 pm

So, Cork Tournament. I've thought about these games but I'm tired so I won't write down my thoughts on them. I've left some of the variations I went over with people though, so this should give some ideas about what we were thinking.

Game 1: I hadn't played him in a year. Being unsure about my own strength and his made for an unsure game. The game got marked as a loss for me due to an error in counting (my opponent forgot to put my captures on the board, I was too tired to notice, we reported the game result as B + change and only noticed the error later). I didn't feel in control in this game as much as I'd have liked to.

Game 2: One of the local lads. He entered at completely the wrong rank.

Game 3: I made some very large errors on top. I could claim tiredness etc but I was very much outplayed here. I didn't drag the game out, I didn't see any reasonable path to evening it up or starting a large enough ko to make a difference. And after Game 2 dragging on for almost the whole 50 minutes maintime each I was tired and just wanted done with it.

I don't know, it was fun, I should play go more often.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Sun Dec 08, 2013 10:50 am

Final two games of the tournament.

First, 9 stones against a 3 dan. I got into byo around the time the recording stopped and got far too rushed and careless. I lost the ko and most of the top right from O to T died. Ah well, did ok for a while at least.

Then finally an even game. We'd played each other before and have known each other for a fair bit from tournaments, so it was very interesting. We basically got trapped in a overly large, silly fight on one side that got too big for either of us to ignore and ate up most of our main time. I could have played on but I was exhausted, couldn't see a way back realistically. The final moves were a result of me missing the liberty at Q4. A very enjoyable game but mentally exhausting.

Anyway, good fun despite the two losses.

Edit: Mixed up the games first time around, tired.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Sun Dec 08, 2013 5:07 pm

Some comments on the 9 stones game.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 1:11 am

Thank you very much Bill. So much to work on and think about.

skydyr · Post by **skydyr** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:38 am

In the first game of post #833, at move 199, white wins the capturing race if he just cuts and black defends, I believe. Start at the first line atari, follow up with the second one, and then descend to the second line, and white's one liberty ahead.

EDIT: Also, back at move 101, I believe white can clamp instead of hane and connect.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:45 am

skydyr wrote:In the first game of post #833, at move 199, white wins the capturing race if he just cuts and black defends, I believe. Start at the first line atari, follow up with the second one, and then descend to the second line, and white's one liberty ahead.

Black wouldn't answer the second one surely. I mean, they really don't have to. I think it's a ko actually if white descends and black descends to B7, but it's not a nice ko for Black so yeah cutting is a lot better than the game move.

Boidhre · Post by **Boidhre** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 1:38 am

I'm not looking for a review, merely using this as an excellent example of me turning a good game for me into a very tough or lost one simply because I didn't read something out. If I could get the discipline to read when I needed to and the wisdom to figure out when that is I'd probably gain a fair few stones. Something to improve on anyway.

The game is still in progress, so please no continuations or anything like that. I'm 16k there due to the account being inactive for quite a while until this Irish Turn Based Tournament started. Everyone else seem to be using their EGF rating, I probably should have just created a new account but I was attached to the username.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:26 am

A couple of comments on the opening.

Life In 19x19

A beginner's journal of little interest

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