Life In 19x19

This was my first game on OGS and in a while in general. This was actually my first game with quick-ish time settings (10min + 1x20s). I knew I was winning, but I made a huge mistake on and the game seemed to be in the balance again. Thus, I was hoping for any comments on my fuseki and direction of play in general.

Leela's estimate of winrate for reference. You can see the 40% jump in win rate

6: Good move. Finds the weak spot left when he fails to play joseki.

14: Good sense of shape.

20: This feels slack. You are attaching to a weak stone.
I recommend that you either leave it alone or - if you feel that you must attack it - try F17.

22-26: Continuation of a dubious theme. An outside wall faces his tengen stone and is already partially neutralized at birth.
This group doesn't have a bright future.

40: Save this for a ko threat.

42: Way too far. You have a group with half an eye. It needs an extension: C11, C10, or D11.

43: Ouch.

50: Tenuki is premature. Try G10 or C12.

Gotta feed the cat. More later.

60: QP14 holds everything together.

70: This feels like you are getting too clever. You are forcing hm to become stronger. N14 is the honte move, IMHO.

72: Way too clever for your own good.

78: This tends to dissipate whatever advantage you have on the right side.
R5 or Q5 is better.

98: You must capture.

110: If he plays the obvious bamboo joint, this turns your move into a peep at a bamboo joint. You leave a weakness at O9 for him to push through.
Your move should be M4 followed by O9 or M7. EDIT: You may not even have time for M4. O9 may be required immediately.

I'm beginning to see a trend here. You leave your groups just a bit weak and get involved in premature attacks or territory grabs. Cover your cutting points, make eye space, THEN get greedy.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:60: Q14 holds everything together.

70: This feels like you are getting too clever. You are forcing hm to become stronger. N14 is the honte move, IMHO.

72: Way too clever for your own good.

78: This tends to dissipate whatever advantage you have on the right side.
R5 or Q5 is better.

98: You must capture.

110: If he plays the obvious bamboo joint, this turns your move into a peep at a bamboo joint. You leave a weakness at O9 for him to push through.
Your move should be M4 followed by O9 or M7. EDIT: You may not even have time for M4. O9 may be required immediately.

I'm beginning to see a trend here. You leave your groups just a bit weak and get involved in premature attacks or territory grabs. Cover your cutting points, make eye space, THEN get greedy.

Thanks for the suggestions!
I think that habit comes from me attempting to play more actively. Usually, if I can't see that the groups are in danger of imminent death or major losses, I try to play away. For example, I thought the top left group was weak, but would still be alright if I tenuki. On the other hand, an extension there does look nice now that I look at it again.

This was just silly of me. I knew that I needed to go back and capture those 3 stones, but hallucinated there.
Would something like this be expected? If B proceeded to invade the moyo, what can I do—especially with the right side open underneath?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . 5 . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . 3 . 1 . .|
$$ . . 4 . . , . . .|
$$ . . . 2 . . X . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . .|
$$ -----------------[/go]

Hi WindCaliber,

For , you need to consider the Q5 stone.
Local candidates: Q6, Q7, P7, o7 ( maybe there are others;
I'm not sure which is best; also,
I didn't study the whole board carefully yet
to determine the global move. )

given you mention direction of play, I try to make comments based on big/small/urgent, and strength/weakness of groups (such as maybe 42 is ok if you are trying to play on the idea that the G15 group is not completely alive). I would say 20-24 are not too bad. My biggest criticism is the position of 28 as wrong direction and too small.

Windcaliber wrote:Usually, if I can't see that the groups are in danger of imminent death or major losses, I try to play away. For example, I thought the top left group was weak, but would still be alright if I tenuki.

Actually, I totally support your attitude here if you feel you can handle it, and comment on the subtlety of whether or not nearby enemy groups are stable (move 42 above). You don't want to tenuki if you will be severely punished even if you live (e.g. B living in the top left), but the top left W group had some good potential eyeshape, and opportunity to go in different directions, one of which may impact the life and death of another B group. To be honest though, I think the G15 group is locally alive, even after B lived in the corner, but in that case, move 28 is particularly faulty. But it may still be valuable to surround that B group as getting M17 in sente is still non-trivial.

otherwise, I take most issue with your crude strategies 20-26, 46, 66-70
there was very little else to criticise as you played good shapes, and it was good to see tenuki to take big points 28, 42, 50

20-26 I'd say attachments like this are not an attack, but mostly to reinforce the W group. So if that is your judgement and you want to lean on B's weaknesses, then go for it.
46 loses a lot for very little

I've added standard variations for move 78, and tried to answer your question. I agree that R5 "should" be better, but that your move is understandable if you feel behind and want to play more actively, hoping for a mistake.



tenuki at move 98 makes sense as W feels behind, and I think it is not unreasonable to kill everything if B tries to fight, but if you have to defend, I recommend O8. But it will feel like W is in trouble as B can still jump in at R12 (or even just S13).

Wow, thanks for the detailed commentary and good suggestions!

dhu163 wrote: tenuki at move 98 makes sense as W feels behind, and I think it is not unreasonable to kill everything if B tries to fight, but if you have to defend, I recommend O8. But it will feel like W is in trouble as B can still jump in at R12 (or even just S13).

EdLee wrote: For , you need to consider the Q5 stone.
Local candidates: Q6, Q7, P7, o7

Joaz Banbeck wrote: 98: You must capture.

This move seems to stand out a lot.
I feel that I should preface this post by saying that this move was the one move that was pretty much random as I knew I wanted to tenuki, but couldn't figure out where and ran out of time.

dhu163 wrote:given you mention direction of play, I try to make comments based on big/small/urgent, and strength/weakness of groups (such as maybe 42 is ok if you are trying to play on the idea that the G15 group is not completely alive). I would say 20-24 are not too bad. My biggest criticism is the position of 28 as wrong direction and too small.

20-26 I'd say attachments like this are not an attack, but mostly to reinforce the W group. So if that is your judgement and you want to lean on B's weaknesses, then go for it.
46 loses a lot for very little

I also thought onto the 2nd line was weird and was thinking that since B played so low, I should be able to keep it low or seal it in. I can understand how the tengen stone would make the wall worth less, though.

At the time, I was thinking that my stone in the corner was feeling weak so I needed to reinforce it. I didn't want B to live in the corner because I thought allowing B to live and being so close to a B group would be very bad for me, and somehow I thought that I should've been able to prevent the invasion.
I looked into it some more and found this variation, which I think would have been good for W? (In the process of writing this, I just thought of at , which might be troublesome?)

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc B crawls for life?
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 1 . . . X . . . . O X X . . . . |
$$ | . X X . O . . . . X X . O O X . . . . |
$$ | . X O O . . X X X O O . . O . X X . . |
$$ | 4 O 3 . . . X O O . . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . 2 . . . . . . . O . . . O . O . . . |
$$ | . 6 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . 8 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . 0 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . X . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

2 at 3 doesn't work. B has very few liberties.

In your line, w will extend for 11, b will need to crawl once more and then take gote to block at c18. Alternatively, 6 can be at c18 threatening to capture d18.

This is definitely a line to consider, but as I wasn't completely convinced if it was better than the game (I'm not sure), I didn't mention it. The problem is that W's shape remains bad and b did take out a lot of w's potential territory, and the tengen stone still means it isn't clear what the w walls are doing.

But in any case, b's corner invasion seems premature since it lives so small in gote, so it will be good for W. After all it makes 28 look wonderful. Before 28 w had a weak group in the corner, and afterwards, W was strong enough to tenuki, so w defended the group in sente! If b really wanted the 3-3, it would be far more efficient in the lower left. Or alternatively before 28, b could have taken the upper left 3-3 for a much better result.

Also, in general if I see a low stone I think tenuki and there is no need to press them low as they are already low and has inefficient development. And 20 doesn't really keep it low if B hanes and the weird second line stone will have ok efficiency since it defends the cut. And there is no point taking gote to surround a living group and it isn't easy to surround anyway. In the game you didn't really manage to surround it.

Another idea is to play 96 at q7 to defend that cut in sente, threatening s2. Hmm, then the n5 cut is too severe, in that case 96 at q6 is still an idea. Though I still prefer a strategy of keeping your 96 and using 98 to capture everything on a large scale.