Life In 19x19

Hi all,

I've spent the last week or so trying to get experience by playing, while at the same time trying to focus on my fundamentals. Thanks to Ed Lee's comments in KGS, I've been paying particular attention to my shapes-- or at least trying to. After a playing one or two games every other day on KGS, I think I am beginning to get a better sense of the flow of the game, while at the same time becoming all the more aware of how much there is to learn.

In the game below I played as Black, and ended up winning it. I chose to post this game rather than any other because I think I made no big blunder in it. (I am defining blunder as a decisive mistake that you could have easily avoided if only you were a bit more careful-- in other words, the kind of mistake I could learn how to avoid on my own, rather than having to rely on the help of more experienced players such as those in the L19 forum.) Since I could not find any blunder in this game, I am hoping that the mistakes I DID make follow from blind-spots regarding the fundamentals -- and, since they are blind-spots, I could certainly count with a piece of advice or two on how to stop making them

That said, in the SGF I wrote down a few specific questions that actually did occur to me during gameplay. Any help with them would also be very welcome! In case it makes it easier to see the questions in the post itself, I am repeating them here as well:

Move 41: Is Q10 a good use of tenuki?

Move 47: Instead of K15 --which attempts to enclose White's group (though at the same time uses thickness in part to make territory, which is usually not the best idea)-- is an invasion at M15 a better idea, in order to use thickness to attack? I thought about it, but was unsure how to follow it up. Add to it that, since Black seemed to be ahead in the game, an invasion seemed to me unnecessary risk...

Move 89: I was unsure whether this was the best move (or even a good move at that). The idea was to keep W enclosed, and increase B's influence toward the center. Is there a shape-based reasoning to be followed here?

Well, stronger players than me will likely give you better comments, but regarding your first question about tenuki...you do realize B19 kills your corner group?

Lindentree: I had actually not seen that during the game. Now that you point it out it is obvious. There you have it, a blunder... I need to do more tsumego. Thanks for pointing this out.

You may have double-reverse blundered there, and ended up with a good move! That group in the corner is probably only worth about sixteen points. And I think the points are all that matters here... The white group looks pretty much alive, so the fate of the upper left corner shouldn't affect it. Sixteen points might seem like a lot, but when your opponent doesn't have to reply (i.e., your move is "gote") and there's no big follow-up later, you want to slice that in half: it's only eight points. Q10 looks like it could easily be worth 10 points; you've staked out a huge amount of potential territory for yourself.

If there was a mistake in the upper left my instinct is E13: the cut doesn't work, but D14 hugely strengthens white. Same with A13: yes, getting in A15 in sente is clever, but you can just play A15 directly instead.

Edit: your best move in this game, of course, was marking the white's top center group as dead! Very clever

Good points, jts. (although I think the group is worth slightly more than sixteen points; Black loses four points of territory: -4, White captures five stones plus the surrounding intersections: + 17?)

This is actually related to your third question, Brenno. Move 89 may or may not be correct from a whole board perspective, but allowing your bottom group to be cut off at J3 is a little painful. Then when you play L3 at move 99 instead of K2, it dies if your opponent plays correctly.

jts wrote:Edit: your best move in this game, of course, was marking the white's top center group as dead! Very clever

True, when black passed, white could have saved the group by playing N15 right? But if black would have played M15 instead of passing it would have been dead with out question (if I'm not completely mistaken).

No, the group is completely alive as it stands. (If Black M15 then White N15)

There were a few moves left when you passed:

B A12
W P15
B Q15

The last two moves are necessary because the white group on top is alive.

Obviously what happened is that one of you clicked the top-right group dead, which is correct. However, like Li Kao said, you both passed too early. Because neither of you played P15, which is worth a point, it appears to KGS as if white's top middle group is a part of white's top-right group.

jts wrote:Edit: your best move in this game, of course, was marking the white's top center group as dead! Very clever

Jts: I guess this is another good example of a "double-reverse blunder" in the game...

Seriously, though -- I begin to see a pattern here among the comments. I get that the lesson from all this is that I need to study more life and death configurations. Thanks for pointing this out, everyone.