Life In 19x19

Hello. I would like to get a review from the following game (I'm playing black). Although I won the game in the end, this was purely out of sheer luck. If white hadn't done two severe blunders in the end, I would have clearly lost the game. I feel that my game started to deteriorate somewhere in midgame and I'd like to get some feedback on aspects of play I'd need to focus.



Here are my general observations from my game:

109 = I have encountered this answer to double hane recently several times, and I really don't know how I should handle it. I guess I should just reinforce at D6 instead of trying to attack? (Which clearly gave white more territory in the end)

126 = I wanted to use this stone to reinforce my formation and give a way to enter the center from the side. Considering afterwards, this feels really small.

146 = This move didn't accomplish much, and I was instantly punished by white playing at D8. Should I have played my move there?

182 = This was a clear mistake, somehow read the totally obvious sequence wrong. I feel that playing at B7 would have been the correct answer.

190 = I wanted to play at A8, but I felt that I would get more out by playing at J3. I saw the possibility of killing the corner, but I didn't even dare to think that white would mess up there.

193 = I got really lucky here, this severe blunder by white cost his game.

212 = Totally useless move, but at least it gave me sente

220 = This move wasn't that valuable, but in the end I got once again lucky. The sequence led to white resigning the game.

Comments on a couple of positions, rather than a full review:

The UR corner position after move 23 is interesting. Normally B has a hard time choosing between O18 and Q18 to capture the W stone. In this game, B chose to descend, which looks reasonable, because W cannot continue to split B with O18, but instead must first go back to connect at O16. But then next move B allows W to play the splitting move in sente! Getting forcibly split like this is intolerable, no matter what compensation B gets elsewhere on the board. The direct capture at Q18 (instead of the descent to P18) should also be considered. Normally this allows W to atari in sente, then start a ko if B does not connect. However in this position W cannot atari to start a ko, because B has a counter that captures everything!

In the LL corner, your initial block at D3 was the wrong side. There is much more territory to be made on the left than on the bottom, so B should create a wall facing that direction. After W 109, it is probably best to just connect at D5 or D6, then take sente when W lives. However, after the exchange in the game, why not at least play C2 atari as a forcing move? B still connects at D6, then W captures at D2 to live, but now the B block at E2 is atari, forcing W to lose a tempo compared to the game result.

In upper right I chose to descend first, since I felt that if white gets to atari, it would be bad for my position. Not really sure how I would capture everything if white did atari. When I didn't connect, I feared for my H17 group. I felt that letting white play K16 would make my group to fight for life. Although there is a possibility of killing the white group I felt it safer to secure H17 group since my corner was already secure and thus didn't connect.

The part about LL corner is spot on, don't really know why I didn't block at the wider side.

PolarBear wrote:In upper right I chose to descend first, since I felt that if white gets to atari, it would be bad for my position. Not really sure how I would capture everything if white did atari.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc White cannot atari; Counter atari is tesuij
$$ ---------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . . 2 1 . . .|
$$ O . . X O X . X . .|
$$ , . . . 3 O X . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|[/go]

is a problem for white:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Black gets everything
$$ --------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . 2 O X . . .|
$$ O . . X O 3 1 X . .|
$$ , . . . X O X . . .|
$$ . . . . . 4 . . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . . . . . . . . .|[/go]