Life In 19x19

My opponent's move was big, and it pained me to give it to him, but it was also a big gote. It has no big follow-up. Even in terms of big gote moves, I don't know if it's the biggest on the board.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm51 Prisoners - W: 0, B: 0
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . X . X O . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X O . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . X O . X O X X O . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . X X . X O . X O . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . O O O . X . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O X . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . W . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . X X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X . . . O X X X B . |
$$ | . . . @ . X . . . . . X . O O X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

By letting black have I got both and . I think that's a more than fair trade. A weak group is like an anchor, weighing down your whole game. Lessening that burden is worth a lot.

This move secures the corner, and also has a big follow-up, threatening to invade the neighboring extension.

I counted, and the game looks fairly close. I really want to take the top left corner, but this seems like fairly huge double sente. It helps me build my center, which works well with continuing to harass my opponent's weak group. Even if I let him connect, I get forcing moves against him while he does so. Imagining my opponent getting this point was painful to watch, so I take it now. If my opponent tenukis, it will be huge to dive into his side here, but I wanted this strength in place before I did.

Black seems to be getting more in the center than I'm getting along the edge, and I don't really know what to do about it.

May as well try to ride this sente out a little longer before I play a cash move in gote. If he ignores, I can jump one-point-jump east to the shape point of his group. My opponent chose not to link in gote earlier, so I think I can get this center-building move in sente. Sorry for the short comment, but I'm doing this without my mouse so it's a little awkward. This is the move I decided on earlier, though.

I don't want to lean against the middle and solidify it; I still have imaginings of reducing it. The last few moves have been pretty costly for me, I have to regain my focus before the game gets out of reach.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . x x x x x x . . . . o o |
$$ | . . . . . . . x x x x x x x X O O o o |
$$ | . . . . . X x x x x x x x X . X O o o |
$$ | . . . O . . x x x X P x . . . X O . o |
$$ | o o o . . X x x x x X P . X O X X O . |
$$ | o o o O . . x x x . X X . X O . X O . |
$$ | o o o . . X . . . . . . O O O . X . . |
$$ | o o o O . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | o o o . . X . . . . X . . . O . O X . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . O X x x |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . x x |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X x x x |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x x x |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . X X P x x |
$$ | o o . . . . . . . . . . . O . . x . . |
$$ | o o o O . . . . . X . . . O X X X X . |
$$ | o o o O . X . . . . . X . O O X O O . |
$$ | o o . . . . . . . . . . . . o O o . . |
$$ | o o . . . . . . . . . . . . o o o . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Here's my conservative count. Black is up by 11 on the board, but that's only 4.5 with komi. However, black has a lot of potential in the center that I'm not counting here, and I haven't counted territory for the bottom black group; it's not likely that black will get nothing there. White has some potential on the left, and the floating white group will get at least two points of territory when it lives. Black certainly has more potential overall, however, and his stones are much more efficient than mine.

Unfortunately, I'll need to do another major center reduction if I ever get sente, and it needs to go very well.

This was a clever forcing move by my opponent, improving his shape a bit in reasonable sente. Tempted to ignore, but the followup from my previous move is still threatened, so I am better off responding to this, with the hope that my opponent will have to stop and fix his shape/connect. If I get sente here, I will select from one of three places to play: the top left invasion, the bottom (to better stabilize my group) or a reduction on the left center. If my opponent does not help his center group, I will have a move there to attack as well, but I suspect he will be fixing that straightaway.

As far as count goes, I was more willing to make large assumptions than my opponent. I estimated that my opponent will get 60 points (three rows or so) on the left and 20 points total between his corners and the center group, for 80. My top may be around 50, my east 20, and my south 10. Komi comes in too, but I'm being loose enough with my count that there's plenty of leeway for it. If I can take sente for one of those points, I feel as though I will be a little ahead. The reason that two moves ago, I forced my opponent to solidify his western points, is that I made this count and found that I would be probably slightly ahead afterwards. In the spirit of the 'slight advantage', I decided it would be in my best interest to resolve that sort of instability in ways that keep me a little ahead... unless I've miscounted. If anyone makes a big move (like the 3-3 invasion or similar reductions in my groups) or if a group dies without compensation, then one player will probably be ahead by 20 points.

This is stupid and slow and gote, but it makes the group really really invincible so gives me the freedom to create a new weak group.

So, the obvious place to play here is the top left 3-3. However, as demonstrated earlier, that would end in gote. I feel like I am slightly ahead at the moment, depending on endgame. If I leave a weak group, my opponent can attack it with a chance at a sure win. If I defend it (while getting a few points, kind of) I feel like my opponent will have to play increasingly... drastically in order to be sure he can win. Also importantly, my opponent and I both agree that he can read fights better than I can. If I leave a weakness, my opponent has a fair chance to pull off something entirely unreasonable. Endgame, however, I have time to read and count, so I'm less likely to get fleeced. So let's start the endgame. Also, if my opponent does not block the corner immediately, I can try to get it anyways.

I don't know if topazg meant for his comment to be visible to the players, but yes, I have been worried about that. This game is not in my comfort zone, and I'm not used to having a big line of stones like that along the fourth line; certainly not when I'm losing.

This move is just meant to run interference for my upcoming reduction. But unless my opponent blunders, I'm pretty close to resigning.

I know the correct response to a peep is to connect, but he is threatening to cut off one stone. If he just cuts one off, I will gladly wall that off and be better off. I suspect that my opponent will peep at my other connections and try to use this to get a deep reduction to safety. However, this corner move seems to be so big that it is worth giving him a bit of a head start in reduction. This move is safe and solid, while the deeper my opponent pushes, the more likely he is to have a weak group stuck inside my turf. Let's just hope that this is a reasonable application of mutual damage.

I'm not unhappy about this because it removes most of the aji from my left side and it ends in gote for black. I also feel more confident about my reduction for getting a free move.

Okay, going to just keep as connected as I can and ride this out. My opponent will likely get a fair reduction on me here, but I question whether it is enough after the 20 point swing in the corner. It certainly might be, but I currently regret nothing. This game I'm trying to work on making my decisions based on the count I estimate, so I really should stick to my guns and take what seems to put me ahead.