Life In 19x19

Mi Yu Ting in 2007

The match with Gu Li

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EV[2011~{=pA"JV;z1-N'<WA*H|5ZKDBVVw=+~}]DT[2011-05-21]PB[~{XBjEM"~} (Mi Yu Ting)]
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We might want to watch this one in the future.

Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

I think sometimes pros agree beforehand to play a few nonsense moves just to troll us all. Most of this game made very little sense to me.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

Doesn't it keep W connected?

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

I can point you to some good commentaries if you like, but it's hard to understand their games at dan level. You have to read out all variations to at least 50 moves.

jts wrote:

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

Doesn't it keep W connected?

It threatens to connect and lets white increase the corner in sente.

jts wrote:

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

Doesn't it keep W connected?

It keeps white connected with two gote moves. Somehow I don't imagine a pro playing that way.

nagano wrote:It threatens to connect and lets white increase the corner in sente.

Uhhh...which corner?

nagano wrote:

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

I can point you to some good commentaries if you like, but it's hard to understand their games at dan level. You have to read out all variations to at least 50 moves.

With great pleasure

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

My thoughts: if black plays at 154 it's sente against white's top right corner - black P18 would then kill. As it stands, P18 just kills locally but white can push and cut his way out. Thus, using that sente, black can connect. White 154 prevents this connection.

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

Gogameguru has some commentary of Gu Li vs Lee Sedol matches by An Younggil. You could try checking them out.

gaius wrote:

Joaz Banbeck wrote:I didn't understand W154. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that white is a move behind when the fighting starts in the lower right side. At first glance, something like N3 looks better.
What am I missing?

My thoughts: if black plays at 154 it's sente against white's top right corner - black P18 would then kill. As it stands, P18 just kills locally but white can push and cut his way out. Thus, using that sente, black can connect. White 154 prevents this connection.

Yes, you're right.

Dusk Eagle wrote:

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

Gogameguru has some commentary of Gu Li vs Lee Sedol matches by An Younggil. You could try checking them out.

That's probably the easiest source. Of course you could find more on http://gogameworld.com, but it's subscription based.

Dusk Eagle wrote:

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

Gogameguru has some commentary of Gu Li vs Lee Sedol matches by An Younggil. You could try checking them out.

I went throught some of them, but I wouldn't say they are kyu-level They comment some moves, but more or less all moves seem strange to me. And I'm certainly not the only one, I remember the contests we had on "which level is this game ?" where pro games were often rated SDK (it was very fun)

An Younggil put some comments on one Gu Li game to the effect of "I don't understand what's going on here either.", so I dunno if anyone can make the games understandable to an sdk, unless maybe it were the players themselves.

There was an article about this that said Gu Li is struggling from fatigue, due to the intense match schedule.

Still, impressive performance by a 15 year old.

Tryphon wrote:Is it possible to find a commentary, understandable at kyu level, of a game by Gu-Li (or Lee Sedol). I don't understand more or less all their moves...

Unfortunately their games can be hard to understand because they fight so much... This is especially true in tournaments where the time limits are short, because then it just becomes chaos.

If you want learn to play a fighting game, but are looking for some pro games that are easier to follow, I'd recommend having a look at Kato Masao's games. His style is very solid and his attacking is very powerful.

If you want high quality commented games that explain things thoroughly, try John Power's Invincible - The Games of Shusaku. This is an excellent book for learning about the middle game, with detailed explanations.

Ultimately if you want to understand pro games better, you need to improve your reading by doing a lot of life and death problems.

Regarding 154 - The 2nd line kosumi on the top does not kill white even if white could not push and cut his way through after fro mthe corner. White has first line sente on the upper right edge, so the corner is just alive, though it can be seki.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I think the only meanings of 154 are 2. 1: half-connect. Why half-connect? It increases white's safety but also gains points. How does it gain points? A: If black plays there and white cuts, the exchange might gain for black, but more importantly - B: It is gote now, but white makes the corner about 5 points bigger all in Sente later on because of that move, check it out. If we were to somehow calculate the value of points gained, points prevented (if any) and point value of the increase in white's safety, the Gote value would be more than 15 for sure, I believe... Since Sente is usually considered double the value of Gote, White got around 10 Gote just by the enlargement of the corner alone.

So yes! That mvoe does make the corner bigger...indirectly!