Hi!

A game that I played today.
I would appreciate if you point out my mistakes to me .

As of move 29, the only real mistake that I can see is calling yourself a kyu player. So far, your play looks dan level.
The microwave is beeping. I'm going to get breakfast, then look at the rest of the game.

I am reminded of the game review sessions at the last Go Congress, where the Asian pros would refuse to believe that some of us were kyu players because our opening play looked so good. Their opinion changed later.

*Sigh* All too true.

At move 41, the OP's inner DDK gets loose.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Position at move 40
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O O X . . . . C . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O O X X O . , . 1 X X . , X . . |
$$ | . O . . O X . . . O . . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . X . . . . . O O X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

White just played the marked stone. Black MUST hane on top.
The invasion on the left, although perhaps big, is not urgent.

Clamp could also be a powerful move.

Advice:

1. Don't play close to thickness. Destroying some territory is probably not worth it
2. Some techniques, like "cut through keima" may come natural to you, while sometimes they don't work. Don't rely too much on intution. Read more.
3. If you can't read what will happen, leave it, rather than forcing it into a sure loss. Leave the aji lingering about.
4. The loss in this game was induced by a frivolous ko, which was almost a picknick for White. I don't know if that's a habit but beware of starting a ko just for the fun of it.

Full review:

[/sgf]

Thank you a lot for the comments

I really need to understand why I choose move 40. First instinct was Joaz's hane, and I even thought of the clamp (but had problems with the followups). But I still decided to play 40, seeing that it destroys a lot of points and weakens C14, D10 stones. But of course white has time to come back or treat them lightly. And it is not so urgent.

Also I was understanding the proverb "Don't play close to thickness" in a way that you have a problem living and give too much when struggling to live. But the application here is new to me, not playing close to thickness because of the followups. And using an invasion not to only erase points, but also weakening opponents groups.

I realised that my big group needs to live too late (142), I was not aware enough that it is not that strong.
Misreads are another problem (move 84) or obvious ways to live (I don't know why I didn't see that just taking the stone is enough to live at 143).

Misreads are one of the repeating problems for me, but I guess that is quite common.
I guess I should do fewer l&d problems, but with higher accuracy.


All in all, I think that I learned a lot from your comments.

Separating two weak groups or stones is twice as powerful as separating a weak group from a strong group. If you give the opponent 1 problem, he knows what to fix.



That explains.



In L&D, most of the stones are important and there is no decision to make about what is important.
In games, like this one, you first have to decide which stones and connections are important. That often leads to the right idea. At 84 I don't think the reading was all that tough, you probably went for your first idea, which was a bad one, because you had decided the 3 stones were important and they were not.

Cheers!

I was curious what bots thought about my suggested clamp. As black was winning so much Elfv2 liked the hane #1 at 99.5% and clamp did get considered with a few playouts at 99.1. So I added a bunch more stones, white's more useful than black's to make it a closer game requiring severe rather than slack moves (and makes white stronger on right side so hane builds less) and then it did like clamp:

True, he can clamp. But sooner or later he must hane. The clamp just delays it one move.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Position at move 40
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O O X . . . . 4 . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O O X X O . , 2 1 X X . , X . . |
$$ | . O . . O X . . . O . 3 O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . X . . . . . O O X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The important thing is to emphasize to the OP how it fits the flow of the game. We are not necessarily trying to find the best move here, rather we are trying to find the most enlightening move.

And if we are going to consider that the clamp might be 28% better than the hane in some situations, let's be explicit and note that such a continuation includes black getting the vital point at Q3. Otherwise we will truly be misleading the OP.

Some comments on the opening.

Main focus: Influence is fine, and your jump into the center, , was excellent! However, you failed to capitalize on your early lead, basically giving it back by . (White surrendered the lead again with , however.) You could have cashed in early simply by attacking White on the third line or playing the second line hane in the bottom right. Also, an invasion in the top left would have been better than your reduction, mainly because the reduction was too close to White's strength.

Also, once you had taken profit on the top side with sente, Simply saving the two Black stones there was small.

Also, don't run just to run.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins