Life In 19x19

Hi I'm white here. I made (at least) three clear brainfart but I'm looking for some comments on my play, in particular on the upper left joseki.

Thanks in advance. I'm going to post more games in 2017, hope not to disturb

A couple of quick comments on the top left corner.

First, the three space pincer is not severe. Best play may well be to play elsewhere. The 3-3 attachment aims at strengthening the White stone. But there is no urgency to do so.

Second, the hanging connection, , would be better as a solid connection at C-14. The hanging connection gives Black a peep.

To supplement Bill's comment regarding , note that this is not really a ponnuki in the sense of the proverb "A ponnuki is worth 30 points", since that 30 points includes the fact that Black wasted a move playing the stone that was captured by it. Here it is as if you played the classical ponnuki, then handed the prisoner back to Black and let him play a free move elsewhere on the board. Diamond shapes can of course still be useful, but here Black has two peeps at C13 and F16 that will force you into a very dense and inefficient shape.

A question for the stronger players, not a suggestion: what about pincering black's approach in the lower left at 22 to try to do something with the result in the upper left? I guess there's not much thickness because of the peeps, but it seems better than giving black a pretty solid group next to what was supposed to be influence.

denizen wrote:A question for the stronger players, not a suggestion: what about pincering black's approach in the lower left at 22 to try to do something with the result in the upper left? I guess there's not much thickness because of the peeps, but it seems better than giving black a pretty solid group next to what was supposed to be influence.

Seems quite reasonable. I might choose the one-space low pincer, looking to make something on the left, but the two space high is perennially popular these days and may work too.

Let's take a look at the position after b21. It has already been said that D14 should have been at C14 so that the peep is not sente.

The sequence in the top left has two interesting things to look at. First, the peep at C13, followed by B13 can be considered sente for black, but black should not rush as a white stone at A14 severely impacts the corner after that. In fact, if white gets a stone there then E18 becomes sente.

So let's look at the point E18. If white plays there it is gote but it does mean that black no longer has the sente peep and extend on the left. If black played E18 he is effectively connected to J17, a stone which would otherwise be an overextension from the left. Neither of these plays is actually urgent, but the resulting aji does limit choices for both players.

Now let's take a look at the left and assume that black can play C13 and B13 in sente. That means that if black can establish a position on the left it has the potential to grow quite naturally. Also, if black establishes a position on the left then white will not want to restrict this expansion by preventing the peep because it is too small. (Yes, it actually happened in the game but it was an error.) So white should avoid a joseki which forces black to make such a position. Again, white did do that in the game and was an error.

So, if an attachment is bad, what can white do? He must either pincer of play along the bottom. A pincer, while not out of the question, looks a little dangerous because of the already stated possibility of black making a position on the upper left by peeping. That leaves a move along the bottom.

The most obvious choice at the bottom is F4. That will most likely end up with the position in which black attaches as C3, white ends up with an extension to J3 and black has an extension to C8. In such a position white may later be able to expand to C10, which is not too bad, but more likely black will play the above sente sequence. However, if white can get E18 later then that sente sequence for black is not available. As for white, the extension to J3 has an effect on black's options on the lower right.

BTW, black should have peeped before extending after the joseki in the lower left. The extension to the second line is not necessary at this point.

The above is a cursory evaluation. It took me less than a minute and in a serious game I would use it as a basis for further evaluation. I would expect a high kyu player to be able to evaluate something along those lines but it may take 3-5 minutes, which means in a serious game there may not be time to further evaluate to very much depth. I would not expect someone in the low SDK range to be able to see all of that and a DDK probably would see very little of it.

So what am I trying to get at? First of all, if you don't try to look at interrelationships between positions on the board you will never learn to see them. Second, if you don't look at the relationships between the two side after the sequence in the top left, you will have problems developing into a dan player. Thirdly, there is always something going on which most people will not see.

As a kyu player I would not have capable of most of the above analysis except in review. As a borderline dan player I probably could have seen it, but probably not in a game unless there were long time limits. So, if you want to reach a high level you need to look at at ALL your games afterwards and review them to look for things which are beyond you when playing in real time.

Thanks for the kind answers I review all my games after play and in 60% of them I can see (or at least I try) the very worse blunder I made. So it's easy to understand them and (try to) correct. But in the other 40% of my game I can't grasp the points so I post on L19x19 to get some good reviews like this.

I'll post more if I don't disturb with them

See ya