Life In 19x19

a little confused as to why I lost when I gabbed all 3 corners and a good chunk of the middle

1) You don't need to physically capture the white stones at the end if you know he can't save them.

2) Play more games, your brain will learn the patterns faster than we can explain them. It'll do you more good (at least initially) to play more games instead of thinking longer on each move.

3) Maybe glance through: http://senseis.xmp.net/?BasicInstinct

Oh, and-- by my count you did not lose that game. I'm not sure how you got W+10.5? I get B+0.5, and if you'd passed instead of playing the last three moves, it'd be B+3.5

Hey Donovitch, truth be told I can't figure out why it says W+10 either. To me it looks like 19 points of black territory plus 8 captures, versus 19 points of white territory plus 1 capture and 6.5 points komi. So I get you winning by 0.5 points. Still, some pointers...

First, if you count, you'll see that you only got slightly more than half of the points on the board. (Easier to visualize if you imagine a line running from the bottom left to the upper right.)

Second, in even games White gets a small bonus of 6.5 points ("komi") to even out Black's first move advantage. This forces Black to play a little aggressively and keeps the game interesting. This means that even if black feels slightly ahead on the board, she can still lose if the lead is less than komi.

Third, you played at least five unnecessary moves inside your own territory at the end of the game. This erased your territorial advantage (although you still controlled more of the board, because you captured so many stones.

And this is why we should reload threads before responding

oh thanks for the reply
Not sure if this comes into play but at the end it seemed ( I don't know exactly how the program handles it)like the other player kept on trying to claim all my stones as dead.

Chances are the other guy was a little confused about how to count it (or was just being a jerk).

Basic instinct is a great little page.

Just keep playing and you'll see all kinds of things. Here are my two little tips:

At move 17, you are playing far too defensively. Try and find a move which expands your territory or pushes into his.

At move 24, you can play to the left of white's lone stone (we call that a hane) instead of the space you played. Try and imagine his responses to see that you'll be ok

wow the comment about move 24 would be brutal- I didn't even see that

The shape after is pretty common, so you'll get your opportunities to play it correctly soon enough .

One other thing you can watch out for is that at , playing one down and one to the right of where you played secures you more territory than where you played.

I like the criticism, is there a problem if I continue posting some of my games? It sorta would probably seem like trash to alot of people as green as I am- but I really do feel like I do get something out of it.

Donovitch wrote:I like the criticism, is there a problem if I continue posting some of my games?...

No problem at all. Indeed, advising beginners is one of the major purposes of this forum.

You'll do best if you include only one game per post ( you're doing fine there ) and ask specific questions ( Although that only matters more as you get stronger: at 20-30K, just "Wha happened?" is good enough. )