Unexpected victory against 5k

[alejo]

I consider myself to be among 6-8 kyu depending on the day, so I expected to be defeated when I facing a 5k without handicap on a tournament game in KGS. I reviewed a couple of the most recent games from my opponent and found out that she was fond on pincers. Off to Kogo's and Smartgo to learn about pincers. Anyway, I won't win by knowing how to deal with pincers, but I don't like the common joseki after that pincer.

I must confess I haven't played go seriously for a while, so this might easily be my best game during the last two years. During the game, I felt I was winning till the reading mistake around move 222 with the upper white group which costed me a group. Afterwards, I thought I was losing. Any comments and pieces of advice are welcome.

[Joaz Banbeck]

Move 8: I'm not sure about this one. TTBOMK it is a special purpose joseki, to be played only under particular circumstances. The two most common plays - the only ones more popular than tenukiing - are to invade the corner at the 3-3 point, or the one-space jump to O15 in preparation for a running fight.
As I understand it, this variation is only played when the opponent has too much influence nearby, such that a corner invasion allows him to build a wall that works too well to build a moyo with his other stones, and a running fight is likely to be a losing fight because of those other stones. Under these circumstances, the best alternative is to attach and provoke a quick fight which allows you to live small and still have some access to the center to prevent the moyo.

It has been a while, and the advice was given with a strong accent, so I could be wrong here.

[cyclops]

No need to panic after b223. Just force with J18 & J16 followed by K17.

[alejo]

Joaz: I had already seen a couple of my opponent's games and she usually pincers, assuming her superior reading ability, a running fight seemed a bad option. Actually, she usually plays this joseki with the running fight so she had a lot of experience in this situation... which I lack of. In fact, I just wanted to make her "uncomfortable" by playing some other joseki rather the two usual ones.

Cyclops: I hadn't read it... I just panicked. The sollution was rather obvious but I didn't find it. Actually, I didn't even look for it, I assumed making an extra eye there was impossible. One of these tsumegos I don't solve just because they seem unsolvable, but would solve easily on goproblems...

[oren]

Joaz: I had already seen a couple of my opponent's games and she usually pincers, assuming her superior reading ability, a running fight seemed a bad option. Actually, she usually plays this joseki with the running fight so she had a lot of experience in this situation... which I lack of. In fact, I just wanted to make her "uncomfortable" by playing some other joseki rather the two usual ones.

I think it's more of a situation joseki. I don't think it's the best on an open board. Generally it's used to make your opponent over-concentrated, but you're not doing that here.

[alejo]

Since it seems that no one likes my sequence after the pincer, would someone show me a better sequence without a running fight?

I'll try to check some pro games with that sequence to understand when to use it...

[Uberdude]

Since it seems that no one likes my sequence after the pincer, would someone show me a better sequence without a running fight?

Take the corner at r17. Black pretty much has to block at r16 and you get the corner in sente and r9 ends up rather awkwardly placed (too far/low, you have a good shoulder hit at q10 to flatten black's moyo). m16 is not so normal, but not super-crazy weird either: for example if r9 were at q10 for san-ren-sei fuseki then it's a perfectly good move (though again not most common, 3-3 is fine too even though it gives black a nice wall where q10 is better than r9 here). I've heard Takemiya likes it against the san-ren-sei: he doesn't want to give black influence.

P.S. not that I think m16 is obviously bad. Black's n16 is pretty crazy though! Your result's not bad, but maybe you can do better. At a minimum I want to exchange p17 for p16 before capturing his stone on the top so white doesn't get squeezed so much.

[alejo]

Ok Uberdude, next time I'll check the corner invasion with greater interest.

Thank you everyone