Life In 19x19

Posted: **Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:50 pm**

so this is a returning game after a week or two off of go.
my life is kinda picking up speed and im back in school for a month or two. i havent had much time to play/study go spare shygost friday lectures and battousai's.

winning by 0.5 was awsome. but i know my play is lacting horribly. any pointers?

Posted: **Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:25 pm**

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Black to play $$ --------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O X O . . . | $$ | . . O X O . O . . | $$ | . . . X , X . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Does Black need to protect on the right side? $$ --------------------- $$ | . . . . X O O O . | $$ | O O X O X X O . O | $$ | O X . X X . X O . | $$ | O X . . . X . O O | $$ | O X . . , . X X O | $$ | . O X X X X . . X | $$ | . O O O O O X . . | $$ | . . . . O X . X . | $$ | . . . . . X . . . | $$ ---------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B White to play $$ --------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . X O . . | $$ | . O . . X . X O . | $$ | . . . . . X . O . | $$ | . . O . , . X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . O . X . X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B Black to kill $$ --------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . O . | $$ | . . . . . X O . . | $$ | . O . . X . X O . | $$ | . . . . . X . O . | $$ | . . O . , . X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . O . X . X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------[/go]

Posted: **Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:29 pm**

Black 6: Be careful playing joseki variants in a handicap game. White is presumably better than you are, so if your goal is to win (as opposed to get smashed to learn from it) aim to keep things simple. Just S4 then R10 to settle your group. No need to be fancy, and this is probably the least fancy of all joseki. The onus is on white to be fancy, since he's behind.

Black 8: This is pushing on a link. It's only okay if you then cut. The cut doesn't work here, so pushing in to the link is bad. Just R10 directly would have been great. R10 is a good move because you create a base for your stones and get an ideal extension from your start stone on the top.

Black 12: Usually when you're running, aiming to counterattack later, the one point jump is preferred over the knights move. F15 is also joseki I think, but it takes more skill than the solid one space jump. And again, simpler joseki are better in handicap games.

Black 22: Usually you want to make the knights enclosure first before the diagonal. But you had the right idea. ie: O17 would be better, followed by R15 at some point in the future. Not sure if you know or not, but theoretically 4-4 stone + low knights enclosure + low diagonal enclosure is alive in the corner (so white can't invade). I say theoretically because refuting a 3-3 invasion by white is usually hard (I've had such corners stolen from me, and successfully invaded others' corners).

Black 50: This would be better at R14. Your formation corner is still theoretically invadeable (as you found out).

Black 78: What are you trying to accomplish here? You can't really attack white, and you don't need to attach to help settle your group either. M10 or M9 would be my move instead. Grab more of your moyo.

Black 184: When your opponent is going for a sente sequence (I think it's debatable whether this should have ended with sente for white or not, but you seemed to think so so let's go with that), see if there's a similar sente sequence you can also play. eg: instead of responding you could have take A16. If white decides to try and push in on the right you do the same on the left. If white defends on the left you do the same on the right. In the game white got both sequences in sente. Failure for black.

Black 192: Just connect at N5 instead of going for the ko. The ko is worth less than 1 point. There are still larger points on the board. And you don't need the ko for life.

...

On a grand strategic level, I'm not sure if Black 76 (L7) was the right idea or not. You're going for a large central moyo, but there are still large holes in it. So it's much smaller than it looks, because the holes become miai. My guess is that moves near the edge are worth more. But at the same time that's the only place you can really get enough points to beat white. So I'm really not sure.

Posted: **Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:04 am**

just a small comment on 22: if you want o secure a corner in 1 move without aji, just play Q17:this prevent the 3-3 invasion.
as pointed before, if you want to secure it in 2 moves , in general start with the larger move ie knight move and then ad the diagonal extension
But in the board as it stands, it might be too early to enclose here with Q17 because the board is still so open. i guess you want to do that just before the opponent want to invade, and there he would definitely not do that i think

Life In 19x19

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me vs.7k w/2 handi

Re: me vs.7k w/2 handi

Re: me vs.7k w/2 handi

Re: me vs.7k w/2 handi