overcoming poor play with good tsumego skills at the end

[tchan001]

This was a very ugly game for me for much of the game. But tenacity paid off with a huge kill at the end.

[Tsuyoku]

It looks to me like black had a bad opening, made some horrible overplays and tripped over his own cleverness in trying to win by chaotic assaults which repeatedly led to bad results.

Only once did it seem to work out, but then you grabbed his big eyeless string and it was all over.

Fun game to look at, anyway.

I really think of 11, 29 and 61 as completely unreasonable. You only really got tripped up by 29, and he let you fix it, too.
There's more lessons for black in this game than for white.

[Shaddy]

Mostly variations, not too many comments. You played pretty good but didn't really know how to deal with the odd overplays he made

[Joaz Banbeck]

Thanks for posting. That was amusing; you finally got him after numerous overplays.

I think that you tried to hard to kill early in the game. He made overplays and you created weaknesses in respose. Often the best response to your opponent's overplay is to let him create a weak group and just make yourself strong nearby. Then bide your time. If there is a ko, attacking the weak group can be a huge supply of ko threats. If he creates a second weak group - and such players are prone to do so - then you can start a splitting attack between those two groups.

For a good example of this technique, I recommend looking at Magicwand vs Araban ( http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... =37&t=3164 ) In return for some territory, Araban allows himself one weak group over on the left early in the game. Magicwand does not attack it. He keeps his own groups strong. Then, when Araban takes a risk with a group in the lower right, Magicwand is able to start a splitting attack between two groups. The game is still undecided because Araban's groups are not all that weak and are able to fight back, but Magicwand's patient technique is worth studying.

In your game, his groups are often really weak, and if you just build your own groups strongly, you should be able to crush this guy next time. For particular examples of how to build stronger groups, Shaddy has great suggestions for moves 12 and 38.


One last disconnected thought: if you want to get past 5K, you'll need to know the basic getas. ( See http://senseis.xmp.net/?Geta, particularly example #5 ) In your game, 106 should be at E12.

[tchan001]

Thanks for all the useful comments

[daniel_the_smith]

In my games I overcome good play with poor tsumego skills at the end...

[Bill Spight]

A few comments on the opening.