Befuddling Game (3kyu)

[Puppycakes]

I did a bit of a self review. I'd appreciate any ideas that can be offered up.

I felt like I came out really great in the bottom right corner, so I felt good early, but then I think I made a few mistakes that helped him too much. Any comments would be appreciated.

[Loons]

If you are not interested in using white's cut in that attachment joseki, you don't need to fix your cut immediately.

When close-fighting near your strength, often you will want to play as solidly as possible, even though it feels a bit slow and contradictory. If white has cuts and ataris to use, his shape will become much stronger.

[Shaddy]

move 137 @ n9 seems like it kills.

[amnal]

I thought it was, in general, a good game for black. I particularly enjoyed the strategic choice to not invade the top side, and instead build your own areas and make profit whilst attacking. Whilst white played some dubious moves to exploit, it's nice to see people relying on their judgement instead of going for the more pessimistic 'omg invade'

At move 136 you decide that white is alive, but...

What if you answer move 140 at M7? White Q9 doesn't obviously make him another eye. Maybe I am missing something.

Even if I am missing something, I'm sure you can kill it around this point.

[Magicwand]

you did play good game for the most part.
my advice:
1. do not attack unless you get something out of it or can kill it.
2. you end game is terrorable. read thread started by Bill that teach you endgame.

on your cap:
i am sure you didnt read how he will play after your cap.
his answer was very basic and logical answer which you didnt read through.
if you dont like the result then choose other options.
IMO there are 10 other points other than your cap that will give you good results.
when you are ahead..do not make things complicated.
you didnt need to try to kill his group.

on your attack and other group:
this time you had him in the bag and let him out.
it's all about reading.
also...you could have let him live small in gote and still would have won the game.
IMO you had many many options to win but took the losing path.

[Magicwand]

one example instead of cap:
K9?
since it is so thick you can attach and let his stone drown in influence.

intresting idea..

[Bill Spight]

Some comments.

[Puppycakes]

Thank you all for the review. All of your advice makes sense to me now.

@ Magicwand, I really should have a better feel for all of the natural responses to my capping as well as all of my options. I guess it's stuff like this that will help me get to a higher level, so it helps just to stop and think, "Consider the consequences and natural responses to a cap and maybe I can gain a stone."

I'm also curious about which move you would have chosen in response to the cap.

@Bill, Your review made me feel silly as many of my moves seemed small to me. I tend to get blood lust sometimes, so I don't allow for the opponent to natural give me something that I want and just let him live. Instead, I go for the most severe move sometimes instead of realizing that the opponent will still have work to do after I just take what he's willing to give me.

And thank you everyone who pointed out how I could have killed that group.

@Amnal, thanks for the compliment about my not trying to stingily invade early. I have been trying to reign in that bad habit.

@Loons, The biggest problem is that his not protecting his cut helped leave invasion aji, but his two stones in the center seemed to alleviate that aji. As he ended up just sacrificing two stones and making fourth line territory, so I don't know that it really hurt me to protect my cut, but I felt like I would have left too much invasion aji if I didn't follow up with any sort of extension and that a further extension would have felt overconcentrated with the wall on the right side. The left side, I think that I could have played another extension, but I do like the follow up move that I get after protecting that cut.

[Magicwand]

I'm also curious about which move you would have chosen in response to the cap.

it is posted above K9