Life In 19x19

Here's a game I played the other day where I'm not certain where I went wrong, and was surprised by my losing margin.

Any general advice would be appreciated. Below I highlight a couple of questions, and explanations of dubious moves.

At move 82 I invaded - was there actually a chance of invading successfully here? Also, I began the invasion with a forcing move at 80, but perhaps this idea was misconceived?

My response at 84 was played because the white stone on the side would prevent Black making the ideal 3-space extension after extending.

I made a silly reading error at 98, and shouldn't have lost those stones.

At 204, I didn't really think it was possible to kill the black group at the bottom, but thought I would give it a try as I was losing.

Thanks!

34: Not sure what's best here. I'd like to try perhaps H16 to take a stronger wall by threatening J18. Your way has rather awkward shape.

42: Now your wall's bad shape is a problem.

46: Because of your bad shape, black will definitely eat the corner with B15 or E18. Since you can't stop this, there's no point taking bad shape to reduce black's liberties, and it is better to play B15. This damages the C14 stones much more, but will also make your corner larger if you have time to play E18 before black.

48: I assume you misread. Your result is terrible, because you are too fixated on the corner.

62: Black can still play B18 now, so this is a bit sad. B15 also doesn't work, because black B18 seems to let him kill some stones still (B18 B19 A18 A17 A14 and white can't play A15 because black B16 is double atari snapback). So all in all, your shape is terrible, and you just shouldn't get into it again

70: If you are going to give black the ponnuki, your previous moves were terrible. To play to give black this kind of good shape is to plan to fail. I'm not sure what's best, but it is not to attach to black's stone and make him strong right next yo a group you are trying to save.

Perhaps white should just play L3 or some other big point, and challenge black to eat up the heavy H15 stones.

Alternatively, maybe white Q11 area is strong (though risky); forcing black to play O13 will force white to push towards his weak stones - which is what you want.

76: Another misread, I assume. The Q18 stones are in atari, so it is vital to prevent black's double ponnuki rather than to kill 1 extra stone.

82: Coming into this area isn't a terrible idea - you probably need to to win. I do not know where is best, but might look at sabaki moves like P5 and R6 rather than the insecure wedge on the side.

84: I don't think kicking is actively bad, but the fight is hard for you because you let black get so strong.

104: Throwing good stones after bad. I hope you didn't put any thought into this move, because if you did you wasted it! You spend the next few moves continuing to do this and in the process killing your entire H15 group. If the game wasn't already lost, it is now!

You played badly here because you got flustered after making a mistake and played moves that had absolutely no chance of working. Black could never be damaged, because your stones are already in atari!


I'll stop here because there's already been plenty to look at. Your main problems were:
1) Making bad shape in order to keep the corner, when this wasn't a good trade and a strong shape was worth more.
2) Throwing good stones after bad when, had you been less flustered, you could have certainly seen that this was a poor idea.

I think the most important point of this game is that you played with 10 minutes main time plus 30-second byo yomi. However, you entered byo yomi on move 136. So you played your first 68 stones in 600 seconds. You played the heart of this game as 9-second blitz. By the time you entered byo yomi you had lost the upper center and Black had about 80 points of territory there. The first step is to slow down and think. Once you do that, post a game together with your thoughts during the game. That is the road to improvement!

I once won a game where I lost 4 corners, the center and 1 side
Just make sure what you lose is not very bad.

At your level, just try to focus on a couple of things each game. For this game, although it may sound simple, something to work on is, when you're in atari, connect or extend to save your stones. Some examples of this problem were 50, 70, 76, and 142. There will be times when the stones are unimportant or when you are unable to save them, but your first instinct should simply be avoiding capture.

Smochi wrote:At your level, just try to focus on a couple of things each game. For this game, although it may sound simple, something to work on is, when you're in atari, connect or extend to save your stones. Some examples of this problem were 50, 70, 76, and 142. There will be times when the stones are unimportant or when you are unable to save them, but your first instinct should simply be avoiding capture.

It seems like it's usually harder to teach people to give up unimportant stones than the opposite, so I don't know if I agree with that in general... but for those specific moves... yes.

Although, it's not really a ko after 142, so I guess that one doesn't really matter.

I'm inclined to echo ez4u; Koroviev, how many moves would you have played differently if you spent just five more seconds on each one?

Thanks all, looking through these comments now. In response to your grumbles, I will post one of my slow games next time.