John Fairbairn wrote:
I think it's best to take the Go Seigen view, which seems to boil down to: ALL amateur moves are embarrassing. Even right moves are usually made for the wrong reasons. Although AI now seems to suggest that may often apply to pros, too...
As a 4 dan, I don't find it embarssing to play 4 dan moves, or even 3 or 2 dan level moves, but playing moves worse than a 5 kyu would in a blitz is galling.
John Fairbairn wrote:
What would be of more interest to me, and I think many others, than hearing comments of the type 'move X should have been at A' or 'Lizzie would have done this' would be to hear WHY you made certain mistakes. Time pressure presumably isn't normally a big factor in this event, so what was it that distracted or confused you, or otherwise made you do something irrational?
Time pressure was a problem, this game was the first title match with Fischer: 2 hours main with 30 second increment, which is a lot faster than the previous 3 hours main and 10 moves in 10 minutes Canadian (If you imagine you go into overtime after 120 moves (I'm often earlier) then that's like 3 hours main and a 30 second byo-yomi that accumulates without you needing to do the byo-yomi strategy of playing in the last second even if you know what to play earlier, and 30 second byo-yomi is a lot more rushed than 1 minute). This game was over at 4:45pm after starting late, previous games have gone til after 7pm. I'm pretty sure I would not have died with both my groups inside his big area if I wasn't under time pressure (it's why I didn't n17 push, I hadn't yet decided if I wanted to peep from the other side to make eyes with that group, but his defence there fixes his problem with 1 move when it would take 2).
As to why I played badly: I am out of practice (haven't played a tournament since the Challengers in May, played 1 warm up game on KGS a few weeks ago) and am ill at the moment. I drove for 90 minutes to the game and started without much rest, but I don't think that had as much impact as my headache/earache (blocked tubes meant pressure in my ear from a flight a few days ago still hasn't disappeared).
For game strategy, I thought I should play AI style as I know that more than Andrew K (but wasn't going to double 3-3 invade as having a 1% advantage is not worth giving him walls he likes to use to attack). But then I approached instead of invade for move 5, he did an unusual pincer and we soon got into the sort of fighting he likes rather than a game I can out positional judgement him (though playing c5 kick instead of j17, which would be consistent with slow c11 activating the d15 weakness, was a case of my having self doubt and confusion and not playing what I thought was best). And I didn't f12 hane despite thinking it was better because I was a chicken.
As for why I played my worst move (a12) of the game, it was a combination of several things:
- a hallucination that a14 would not have lost its a13 liberty so a15 would not be atari on move 72, due to previously reading a14 directly (theratening throw in, but gote as need to come back to c12)
- I was going to just start the semeai at e7 which I was pretty sure but not 100% I would win due to being lazy
- Then I thought I discovered a12 tesuji would lead to local life and don't even need to semeai (because if a15 wasn't atari it would make eye on edge in sente and then I make f12 eye -- thanks to not peeping at f15, something I thought about a lot earlier, but then if I had I wouldn't have died later!)
- Andrew K had gone to the toilet so I played a12 when he was away to get his clock ticking without thinking enough.
Been there, done that. 
