I got everything I wanted, but no lead - Please review

[negapesuo]

I made a major blunder at the end of the game, but I don't feel bad about it because I would have never seen it in 10 moves. I definitely learned something from that. Other than that, I got everything I wanted this game with two handicap stones, but things were still pretty even. What were my major mistakes?

Thanks for the review.

[EdLee]

Hi negapesuo,

Good.

Probably push at R16 once, first.

Not good. ( Why did you play it ? ) Just get out, N14 or o14.

o13.

R16.

S16...

R19.

R19. ( Locally, o9. )

mis-click ?

C2.

H17...

Why. You're hurting M3.

L2. You're hurting yourself.

L2.

106 Did you consider K7 hane.

112 Reading required between K10 v. K11.

137 M5. B all dead...?

250 Why.

272 C15.

304 A18.

[djhbrown]

white's second move gives away the sente you had on your first move. any simple kakari instead will keep sente. sente is worth about 30 points in the opening, so your second move lost you 30 points.

[Uberdude]

white's second move gives away the sente you had on your first move. any simple kakari instead will keep sente. sente is worth about 30 points in the opening, so your second move lost you 30 points.

White's first move also gave away sente, so shouldn't he be 60 points behind after move 2?

[djhbrown]

a move in an empty corner is sente.

as any reader of this forum can tell you, Uberdude is a specialist. empty corners are special too, so it logically follows that

proof, as if any were needed, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions

[Bill Spight]

a move in an empty corner is sente.

Nope.

[Bill Spight]

white's second move gives away the sente you had on your first move.

By "you" I guess you mean White. White's second move does give up sente.

any simple kakari instead will keep sente.

False. A kakari may keep sente.

sente is worth about 30 points in the opening,

False. Sente in the opening is worth about 7 points.

so your second move lost you 30 points.

False. White's second move has an opportunity cost of around 14 points. But it gains around 14 points, so any relative loss vs. par is small, not worth considering at the level of the players.

[Uberdude]

a move in an empty corner is sente.
as any reader of this forum can tell you, Uberdude is a specialist. empty corners are special too, so it logically follows that
proof, as if any were needed, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions

As Bill points out, pretty much everything you wrote was false, but if we remain in the alternate universe in which sente in the opening is worth 30 points (whatever that actually means, we've discussed this before) then I was actually rather hoping you would say that the flaw in my profered reasoning was that black's 1st move also gave away sente when he had it, so he lost 30 points by doing so too which cancelled out the 30 points white lost. Saying playing in an empty corner is sente was a surprise! I suppose if there are an even number of empty corners (which there are in a 2-stone game) then you could say each pair of empty corners is effectively miai but I still wouldn't call it sente (and the claim an empty is corner is sente would break down if there are an odd number of empty corners remaining).

And of what am I a specialist and what's that about?

P.S. I feel bad for negapesuo with this thread derailment, so to actually comment on the game: white's cut at the top right was aggressive, perhaps a little overplay, but perhaps not as he has the helping stone on the top. Just so you are aware, if that fight is too difficult you can play s14 at r15. After white crawls s14 you can either hane s13 and then white lives in the corner in sente (which is easier on white as with s14 block the corner needs to live in gote) as you need to cover the 2nd line cut, or make strong shape at o16 and let white come out on the side. The latter is rather over-cautious in this position, but it's a good choice to be aware of when white has support around and the 3-3 is played as a powerful base-stealing and attacking invasion. White's press of 31 was rather thin: I want to cut it but it's complex so maybe that shows you should play r10 at q10. Also I think you tried to kill the corner too early, I want to get out as even if you killed the corner white squeezing the outside is nice for him plus losing the r10/s10 stones was very big (48 bad shape hurt them, but I'm not confident for black in the semeai even with good play), as was the 2 in the middle as they go from cutting stones to junk.

[djhbrown]

to me, sente means "if you don't reply, i will make a local gain" such as a follow-up shimari. taking a big point doesn't imply such a big follow-up move.

so, to me, taking an empty corner is sente whereas the middle of an empty side is not, since there are two sides of an empty side

everything i say is true

[Bill Spight]

to me, sente means "if you don't reply, i will make a local gain"

Then, Humpty Dumpty, nearly every move is sente.

so, to me, taking an empty corner is sente whereas the middle of an empty side is not, since there are two sides of an empty side

Oh, but you can make a local gain after playing in the middle of an empty side. At least in the common parlance.

everything i say is true

By definition, apparently.

[negapesuo]

white's cut at the top right was aggressive, perhaps a little overplay, but perhaps not as he has the helping stone on the top. Just so you are aware, if that fight is too difficult you can play s14 at r15. After white crawls s14 you can either hane s13 and then white lives in the corner in sente (which is easier on white as with s14 block the corner needs to live in gote) as you need to cover the 2nd line cut, or make strong shape at o16 and let white come out on the side. The latter is rather over-cautious in this position, but it's a good choice to be aware of when white has support around and the 3-3 is played as a powerful base-stealing and attacking invasion. White's press of 31 was rather thin: I want to cut it but it's complex so maybe that shows you should play r10 at q10. Also I think you tried to kill the corner too early, I want to get out as even if you killed the corner white squeezing the outside is nice for him plus losing the r10/s10 stones was very big (48 bad shape hurt them, but I'm not confident for black in the semeai even with good play), as was the 2 in the middle as they go from cutting stones to junk.

Thanks, this seems to be a constant problem of mine. I have a plan and usually get what I want, but I end up giving up way too much in the process. I guess I;m not going after the right objectives.

[djhbrown]

i am convinced that having a plan (a high-level intention) is better than not having a plan, and that planning lies at the heart of what we call intelligence, despite the successes of bots with no idea what a plan is, such as Watson and Alphago.

but it is possible to have a bad plan. two things Uberdude mentioned in his review of your game strike me as good examples of bad plans:
1. he says you tried to kill the corner too early. even without checking the game record, i am sure he is right, because that is a common kyu error
2. he mentions a couple of stones in the middle that went from cutting stones to junk - for a moment, i thought he was talking about the DeepZen-FineArt game, in which the same thing happened (see Swim's Reviews #2). in that game, and maybe in yours too, it is an example of going from bad to worse, since (a) if cutting stones die, they don't cut, so their purpose is wasted - unless they were played as "feints", as sacrifice stones, and (b) a plan to save stones that can't be saved only makes things worse. once they are on the board, they have some value even if they can't live, as they can be used as one side of a double-sided threat that forces opp to kill them while you get something on the other side. This is what "aji" means.

so, how to know whether a plan is good or not?

that's easier said than done, but there are some general principles, eg:

1. if you are ahead, play safe; and if behind, try to start a fight
2. the best form of defence is attack

at first glance, it looks like 2 contradicts 1, but it doesn't, because there are two fundamentally different kinds of attack (because every stone operates in at least two directions):

either, attack to kill
or, attack to force a defence on one side, while you build something on the other side (this is called a "leaning attack"). the shoulder-hit is a simple example of a leaning attack.

now we can see what Uberdude meant when he said "tried to kill the corner too early" because if a kill attack fails, it will be ruinous; and it will have wasted the opportunity to instead make a leaning attack - a double-sided threat that builds outside strength whilst letting the corner live.

[BlindGroup]

A minor point, but one that I thought was interesting. At move 58, black faced the board below. You played A, but I *think* B kills the corner. It's not obvious (at least to me!), but B gives black enough liberties to win the fight by threatening to make two eyes. After black B, White has to play A to prevent two eyes, and black C then forces white A again. White now has to play 2 moves in order to play T13. Below is, I think, the sequence of greatest resistance for white, and I think black can even tennuki at move 4.

[djhbrown]

the position BlindGroup discusses suggests to me that both players are playing what i call "psychopath Go" - playing with only one thought in mind: killing.

i found myself wondering how they got into such a mess, each with all their eggs in one basket.

it all goes back to white's second move (move 3), which i still think is weak because it gives away sente. his first move, taking the empty corner was sensible, with which even argumentative Bill might agree.

taking an oba is what you do when you dont have a decent sente move, but after black sensibly took the last corner, white has 6 sente move areas to choose from (6 sides to kakari from, with several choices of kakari in each of the 6 areas).

so when white threw away the initiative with K17, black had a chance to seize it.

but in playing D10 black threw his chance away too! - although Go Seigen might like his san-ren-sei, and who am i to argue with Go Seigen?

black D10 is much better than white's K17, because D10 looks both ways up and down the left side, whereas K17 is just sitting there all alone, waiting to be attacked.

but D10 is gote, so white has another chance to take sente, and this time, at move 5, he does take it... sort of... but does so with an overplay.

i've seen pros make 3 space jumps and more, but to me it doesnt look right in this position, because as well as unecessarily leaving behind a weakness at M17, black has D16, so white's chances of making much at the top are not good. therefore, it would be more prudent to make a 2-space jump, or to kakari from the other side, pincering the corner stone - either corner.

black 6 is sensible. it strengthens black's potential in the upper right, and thereby also weakens K17-O17, which is why O17 was an overplay.

white follows up his blunder with an even bigger blunder - a "Jealousy Go" move, trying to steal black's corner, which is going to make black strong on the outside, making K17-O17 even weaker.

had K17 been at L17, entering the corner is locally feasible, but at this stage of the game, the top right corner is the smallest part of the board, so w should have turned elsewhere instead.

black's block at Q17 is sound. at this point, white should realise he has already made 2 blunders and gracefully resign.

but of course, not all Go players are honourable, and many carry on beserkering long after the curtain has fallen.

the sequence to white 13 is a joseki, and that's where the joseki ends; black has sente and the opportunity to build something along the bottom, or maybe to make white cry at the top.

but black doesn't do that - instead, he plays a yose move, blocking the right side which is doubly bad, because (a) it is aji-keshi, eliminating one of his future ko threats, and (b) because white already has Q4, black's potential territory on the right is smaller than his potential on the bottom. And because black already has R14, white's potential on the right is small too. The bottom side is bigger (more urgent) for both players.

so why did black play S14? what was his plan? to kill the top right??!

if the top right were killable, the joseki wouldn't be joseki.

PS can anyone tell me how to copy an eidogo record in a post so as to use it in a reply?

[Uberdude]

white's cut at the top right was aggressive, perhaps a little overplay, .... I think you tried to kill the corner too early, I want to get out as even if you killed the corner white squeezing the outside is nice for him

Thanks, this seems to be a constant problem of mine. I have a plan and usually get what I want, but I end up giving up way too much in the process. I guess I;m not going after the right objectives.

These kind of situations with a not-yet-alive group delaying playing a gote move to live and instead cutting the 2 surrounding groups are reasonably common. As a general guideline you want to avoid the surrounding groups from getting enclosed but keep on fighting for centre access. If you kill the group but they then get several forcing moves on the outside it's often not so great, particularly if you actually have to take the dead group off the board (semedori: filling in your own territory) in a semeai instead of being able to live independently. But if they come back to live then your outside groups no longer have the option to kill to make eyes so you need to make sure if you get 2 moves in a row on the outside you are happy (with both groups).

A minor point, but one that I thought was interesting. At move 58, black faced the board below. You played A, but I *think* B kills the corner.

Well spotted: that does increase liberties. So guess where would have been better for white's previous move?