Life In 19x19

I played another tournament game against the opponent who appeared
here: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... f=4&t=8381.
He has rightly promoted himself to 3 kyu. I still languish at 4 kyu.

Unusual attachments and early invasions were to be expected,
and they duly appeared. I had decided in advance to try to put into
practice Bill Spight's suggestion at the end of the thread just referenced.
It did not go well. (Only I am to blame, naturally.)

I could draw the conclusion that it is better to challenge this opponent to a
fight and take my chances, since we are about equal in fighting strength. Instead,
I am reflecting ruefully on the need for balance in the approach to the game. Such as
the balance between attack and defence and the balance between determination
and flexibility.

Away with the abstract nouns! Here are the moves.



By the way, do Americans spell "Opening" with three "n"s, as rendered by EidoGo?

So this is my doing, eh?



Edit: NoSkill is right to cut with . Also added variation for ko on left side.

Some comments

Thanks Bill and NoSkill. I never gave a thought to cutting at c12. Next time.

I was going to post some comments on your game, but I see Bill beat me to it, with essentially the same points. Let me emphasize just one of them.

Your opponent played a lot of strange and mostly bad moves. Many times you took initial advantage of these bad moves to get a superior result, but after that you often failed to convert your advantage into territory.

The opening gave B a thick wall, worth more than the W territory above. In addition, W was left with a weak stone too close to that wall. But that good result by itself will not win the game; you need to find a way use the wall effectively in the game continuation.

B19 must be an extension/pincer at Q10 or R10 or Q11 or R11. This keeps your wall working at maximum efficiency. You threaten to swallow one W stone and enclose a reasonably large territory. If W runs, you can use your wall to attack and make territory elsewhere. Conversely, if W gets to make a base here, he greatly devalues seven of your previous moves. No single large move elsewhere on the board (even an outright kill of the lone F17 stone) has this much value.

mitsun wrote: Conversely, if W gets to make a base here, he greatly devalues seven of your previous moves. No single large move elsewhere on the board (even an outright kill of the lone F17 stone) has this much value.

Thanks for explaining that so clearly!