Life In 19x19

My son has been frustrated recently with several loses. I'm not strong enough to helpfully review, so any comments are appreciated. In this game, we are mostly interested in advice for black, but thoughts about white's play are also interesting.



Some of my ideas:
looks very likely to create a weak group. With 3 corners still open/approachable, no need for this move at this time. D17 would be my choice.
should be at F12, then black has either E12 or E13

I am not strong enough either, but here are my thoughts anyway:

looks strange to me. Generally, you don't want to push through a keima unless you decide to cut afterwards.

After the game looks in favor of White. I think Black gave White too much influence.

As you pointed out, is the losing move. Once Black is dead and has a weak group surrounded by huge white walls, the game is almost over.

and are of course fine and good moves in a local sense, but they're moves that are insufficiently concerned about (or, in the latter case, aggressively in denial of) the huge elephant on the board. That white wall what the game is about now. White gave up 40ish points (not a scientific count) for a gigantic wall facing the rest of the board. I can see the logic of Q14, I guess, trying to build a counteracting base which helps with the still-open top side before thinking about the center, but I don't think it's a good move (the exchange for K16 seems terrible). I think at , black is better off playing K16 or so himself. Or perhaps E17, accepting a local loss for (presumably) a nice base that can then help the F10 stone and help avoid a winning center moyo if white just takes the corner.

I don't really know what a good move is at , but without reading anything at all I think I'd be attaching to a stone here. D11 seems obvious, but perhaps D14 first.

Those are conceptual mistakes in my opinion; I could be wrong.

The fighting that happens afterwards looks okay for black all things considered, until . That is the kind of mistake that an SDK really cannot make. In these delicate situations, reading is critical, and playing a move that just doesn't work is going to lose games at this level. The remedy is probably to relax, breath, and practice simple 3-move reading. I get a hurried vibe from this game.

I'm at the same level as your son. The first thing that strikes me as "off" in the game is through . feels slightly too close when it was played, but following , feels uncomfortably close to white's thickness. I could be wrong, but rather than take the bottom territory with , I'd tenuki.

The reason for this assessment is tewari -- F10 does not seem like the right move on this board if it's black's move to me. That said, this board looks very good for white to me even without F10, but I could easily be wrong on that one

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . M . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . O O O . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . O O . . O . O O X O X . . . . O X . |
$$ | . X X O O . X O X X X O O O O O X . . |
$$ | . . . X X X . X . . . X X X O X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

isn't a great place to reduce, and it seems like an overreaction to a hint of a white moyo. This is strange because many of Black's following moves seem designed to give White extra strength in the center. Primarily looks bad to me: pushing in like this is a terrible habit. Black does not need to reply locally at all. LZ wants to just take more of the lower left corner at this point, but other moves are conceivable.

At I would have criticized the atari as needless, but LZ doesn't mind very much. But that's because it has a different plan for , not giving up the cutting stone. Either way, Black's play is too passive and helping White gain strength.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc19
$$ | . . . . . . . . O O O . . .
$$ | . . . . . O . . . X O X 5 .
$$ | . . 4 O O . 8 6 X . X O 1 .
$$ | . . . X X X . 7 9 . 3 2 . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ +----------------------------[/go]

looks strange. Surely the following is the right shape, taking more of the corner and reducing White's liberties:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc19m27
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ O O O . . . . . . . . |
$$ . X O X . . . . . . . |
$$ X . X O O O O 1 . . . |
$$ . . . X X X . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$-----------------------+[/go]

Leela Zero thinks lets Black into the game again. After that both sides make good moves for a while.

Not all is lost after , although F12 would have been better. Here's one sequence that occurred to me:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc19
$$ +--------------------
$$ | . X . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X X . . . . . .
$$ | . O O X . . X . . .
$$ | . . O X . O . O . O
$$ | . O X O O . . . . .
$$ | . O X 2 1 4 . . . .
$$ | O O X 3 O X . . . .
$$ | . X X O 5 . . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . O X X . . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

And here's a sacrifice plan which Leela Zero thinks is a win for Black.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc19
$$ +--------------------
$$ | . X . . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X X . . . . . .
$$ | . O O X . . X . . .
$$ | . . O X . O 7 O . O
$$ | . O X O O . . . . .
$$ | . O X 4 3 5 . . . .
$$ | O O X 6 O X . . . .
$$ | 0 X X O 2 1 . . . .
$$ | . . X X O 9 . . . .
$$ | . . 8 O X X . . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

If we can infer your son's way of playing from this game, I'd say he has overall good technique (how to play) but not strategy (where to play). There are a couple of plays that show he can also improve technically, but strategy should be the focus.

The move at 13 speaks of envy or fear (that White may grow big). It might be rather fear, because many of his subsequent moves are submissive.

Move 45 is the best move of his game. This is something positive to build upon.

Full review - containing many duplicate advice as was already given:

Some comments on the early play.

Plenty of people have already pointed out plenty of issues but to me the move that really jumps out is . It's a move that says "I have no idea what's going on in this game but I'm going to take your word for it that this is the important area." It's a 10k "I guess I should play near where my opponent played last" automatic move. I know Black is a much better player than this because I have played him! White is playing in a weird way and Black needs to step back, take a deep breath and play the actual biggest move on the board instead of trying to find the best point within two spaces of White's last move.