Life In 19x19

This game was just a battering. My opponent outplayed me certainly and would have beaten "good Joellercoaster" I think. But I gave him way, way more help than he needed...

I've gone over this game for myself and picked out some particularly terrible things to not do again (I feel like it actually encapsulates all of the things I don't like about the way I play in a single game), but I would be very grateful for some concrete advice as well.

Some thoughts:

Hi Joel,

This feels like taking a vacation in the middle of a battle.
You're fighting upper left -- at least 2 unsettled groups there.
No time to tenuki.

shape. You're ready to give up your 2 C12 stones ?

confused. Split W, otherwise has no meaning.

Locally, you end up with a heavy group,
and toothpaste for Black.

and the local result at show your (mis-)understanding of toothpaste.
(See also .)

Locally, very big, important shared vital point.

Again, the local result here shows a very big (mis-)understanding of toothpaste.

expecting B to connect at D6 -- bad feeling, bad habit, bad shape.

148 - 149 Same as -- bad feeling, bad habit, bad shape.

Joel, a huge part of your problems is basic shapes.
In particular, broken shapes. Please see also this section .

joellercoaster wrote:I've gone over this game for myself and picked out some particularly terrible things to not do again (I feel like it actually encapsulates all of the things I don't like about the way I play in a single game)

These 'terrible things' you mentioned: did any of them include the basic shape problems ?
From my anecdotal evidence, this is a very common, even standard problem,
at these levels: the concept or idea of good shapes and bad shapes --
particularly broken shapes -- is mostly lacking.

EdLee wrote:These 'terrible things' you mentioned: did any of them include the basic shape problems ?

Some of them, I guess, but in retrospect not really.

The things I recognized afterwards for myself were what you (and skydyr) pointed out about about , , and some optimistic peeps and pushes (a la your comment about ) that my opponent happily ignored or disobeyed.

This is a lot of food for thought, especially the part about broken shapes. Thank you both for the advice, it's extremely helpful.

skydyr wrote:Some thoughts

This goes to show how much I was missing. In particular:

"This is a good move to consider, because it prevents black from connecting under with the K2 attachment." had not even occurred to me, and I had to think hard about why that would be a thing. A light has gone on.

to shows just how badly I had misread that whole situation - fundamental things about liberty counts (and shapes) and life and what can and can't be killed.

Back to the drawing board.

Thank you very much!

joellercoaster wrote:

skydyr wrote:Some thoughts

This goes to show how much I was missing. In particular:

"This is a good move to consider, because it prevents black from connecting under with the K2 attachment." had not even occurred to me, and I had to think hard about why that would be a thing. A light has gone on.

It's one thing to "know" this, but reading it out is not the most trivial task. That said, knowing what it should do is at least a guide to reading if it becomes an issue, and it's worth considering the end result, because sometimes your opponent is still left with something decent, depending on the surrounding stones.