Life In 19x19

Hello, I thought I would post the review requests here and link from my study journal, which is probably more appropriate to the way the forum is organized. I play black, I have put my own comments in the sgf, but I would be quite interested in your feedback, in particular about the fuseki, about moves 58, 104, 114, 181, and of course anything else you might have to say about the game.

I hope it helps!
[admin] I made it a little easier to access. -JB [/admin]

Hi mimano,

is a big mistake. is sente: if wedges at either D3 or D5,
B has no good reply, because W has miai of D3 and D5.
If defends D3, then pushes through D5.
If defends D5, then pushes through D4.
B's shape crumbles here.

You are happy to reply to , for example: just connect at D5 with --
this result is very good for B.

W could instead push through at D5.

this is much bigger than you think.
It's not only about killing your B2 stones.
It's also about your D4 group will become weak
after B2 dies.

is soft: can you find a better local sequence ?

Dragon Pie, Edlee, thanks for your comments. To be honest, I took time to respond simply because the questions you raise in your comments have gotten me scratching my head and I had no clue to answer them really. Now I hope I can think of them a bit more clearly.

@Dragon Pie:

I mean that I consider the pincer as an attacking move, and we are early in the game, plus as the handicap holder, I should probably wait for white to be the more agressive, instead of playing like that - but maybe this is a misconception (and maybe I was in a bad mood )

I like your variation. I don't know what happened in the game. I think I was mesmerized by the ko, and just did not think right.

wow, very enlightening variation. Such moves just do not come to my mind at the moment.

is also new to me - miai for building a moyo.

I think I see how it is bigger than defending the cut (which does not require defending)

@EdLee:

Yes this seems obvious to me now. I think that, during the game, I just felt that my corner was secure, just because I had to 1-point jumps defending it...but one-point jumps can be cut if I let them be

should have triggered an immediate response as you suggest, I think I understand that now, and I hope I would see it in a game.

For , I was thinking this is better than the actual game, but maybe there is still a better local sequence?

Hi mimano, you have the right idea on your new variation, but your new is not so good (a bad habit, perhaps). Instead, double hane directly on the outside at .

Directly double hane is usually better, but it does give white this choice:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 6 |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 X O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O 5 . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O 7 . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . X O X X O . |
$$ | . . . X . O . . . . . . . . X . . O . |
$$ | . . O X O . X . . . . . . . O O O . . |
$$ | . X X O . O . X . . X . O . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O . O . X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

As the white corner is already rock solid the 2 stones aren't so big (and black's group is already strong), and getting a ponnuki in black's framework is quite nice. The bad things about the atari if white was not going to go for the above trade are:
-it gives white more eyeshape
-loses 2 points of endgame on the 1st line

White's corner is super-alive so the eyeshape concern is not relevant, and losing 2 points to avoid giving your opponent an alive group in your moyo seems like a worthwhile trade to me. So although playing that atari instead of directly double hane is a very common beginner bad habit, I think this position could be one of the occurrences it is justified.

Talking of bad habits, my bad habit in this shape is in fact to play the double hane and forget they can go for the outside ponnuki trade and being unpleasantly surprised when they do

@Edlee - you are right with regards to the bad habit: I would bet that if you take a look at all of my games so far, you will not find any of my play being a double hane. The truth is, I am very reluctant to play it, simply because in my short sighted view, it is too weak a shape and my be cut easily. But I trust your judgement, and will try to make it part of my collection of moves, and try to play it when appropriate.

@Uberdude - thank you for the pointer - as Edlee likes to say, each move should be judged with respect to the particular board configuration, and apparently, my atari as was not too bad in this particular situation. To be totally honest though, I did not discard the double hane because I read this variation, as Edlee very rightly hinted

mimano wrote:it is too weak a shape and my be cut easily.

Hi mimano, yes, this is quite common around your levels.
I have another friend who has been struggling with the double hane, too.

The strength v. weakness of this shape is not just local; we must look at the global context to decide if it's a good move.

Hi mimano, please compare with this game thread, post 294.