Hrabanus wrote:Thank you, Bill Spight
De nada.
Do i understand your continuation and variation of my variation rightly, that in trying to kill this group i would have inevitably lost at least the stones close to the center?
Oh, there is nothing inevitable about it. I have added a couple of more variations below.
If you had restricted the potential eye space for the Black group (see variation at White 172), would Black have been able to make two eyes? Play around with the position and see what you think.
Also, Black had an interesting alternative at move 177.
Playing through them changed my perception of the area. Before i still thought of it as my territory being invaded and that i just have to make better borders. Now i start to feel that my 'borders' simply were loosely connected, killable groups.
Am i right about that, or is it just a new misconception?
Books have been written about play inside the opponent's territory. OC, if there is an effective play inside the opponent's territory, maybe it was not really his territory.
But informally we call it territory, anyway.
At move 162 I have marked five cutting points, chinks in White's armor. Black made use of them, or might have, to live inside White's territory. Later he managed to make seki in the top right corner, inside White's territory.But could White have killed the invading stones with better play? That is an interesting question.
And such questions are why those books have been written.
You will find, as you improve, that even dan players can make mistakes in surprisingly small regions of the board. As a 2 kyu in a handicap game with a 4 dan I managed to win the game by living inside his territory at the end.
As dame get filled towards the end of the game opportunities arise to turn the tables, especially at the DDK level. Even if an attempt to play inside the opponent's territory fails, it can be a learning opportunity.
That is why you should develop the habit of filling all the dame before passing. Some people think that speculative invasions inside the opponent's territory are rude. That may be so with dan vs. dan, when the replies are obvious, but mistakes are rampant at the kyu level. To win the game because the opponent made a mistake. How rude is that!
Edit: To be fair, when people reach 5 kyu or so they are quite good at protective plays. They deserve an A grade in that department. Still, that means that occasional mistakes are made in a small percentage of games.
