Life In 19x19

opponent resigned after i had a long think.
is that not allowed? the kgs admin says the guy left because i was taking so long to move!!!
i think ive found my new strategy. just dont move until they quit. anyway could i get some opinions for the final position i was thinking about?

Don't worry about it, if the guy wanted to play a blitz game, he shouldn't have joined a 30 minute game. You can think as long as your time limit allows. That's why time limits can be customized!

I'm no better than you, can't give you advice on the actual game. ^^

To be fair, you took 7 minutes on that move? What on earth were you thinking about? You're allowed to use your time however you want, but that was a poor use of your time, and as your opponent I'd have probably got a little annoyed too.

P6 or some other connecting move looks pretty urgent to me. Black's L3 group is safe, but at the moment you have two not-entirely-alive groups. Also black can capture three stones (and undermine your eyespace on the right) with S6. Something like black G10 might also put your central group in the annoying position of having to live on the side.

If someone doesn't want you spending 7 minutes on a move, they shouldn't have started the game with time controls that would allow it.

I can't speak for your opponent. Maybe he did get bored. But maybe life happened, and he had to stop playing. I can't be the only one guilty of starting a game of Go to kill some time while waiting for something (under the impression that I should have enough time to play it normally).

Still. Seeing "Herod's" comment makes me really glad I never had to sign on to kgs again (what a worthless admin).

N17 would have killed his blob of stones. That's about 30 points in gote considering 8 of your stones then live and 7 of his are captured. I would probably have played that.

Your move was fine. Decent shape move to create a table. Now it might be able to make 2 eyes locally. Q4 does work to get you an eye at P3 because black can't let you cut off his two stones, but black has a cool tesuji at S6 to kill your three stones and, in the process, protect his 2 stones. I would have probably played O6 to connect directly, but your move was more creative and is probably better in the long-run.

In 7 minutes I don't think I could have done better than N17 or your move. Your move could be better if black is able to kill your bottom group in one move - I don't care to read all the possibilities for that. Is that what you were reading?

EDIT: Nevermind. After doing a bit of reading on the top group I see N17 isn't needed. I guess that's one of the things you realized in that 7 minutes.

its your clock, take as long as you want.

There are three groups to care about:

1) Your O4 group which is threatened by a cut at O6

2) Your H5 group, which lacks eyespace, but is out in the center

3) His D13 stones , who have lots of Aji cause of the F12 cut


So there are two main alternatives for me:

Defend the O6 cut at maybe N8 or Defend the F12 cut to make the capture of his two stones more likely and give your H5 group something to run to.

Some questions to assess the situation
What is more urgent ? - I'd say the O6 cut cause if it's sucessfull your shut off
What is huger? - The F12 cut gives a nice moyo, but it's not definite, the death of your whole group at bott would be more definite territory.
Can the O6 cut be outmanouvered '? - Maybe you can surrender some stones with N7 and if he connects N8.

So Ill play F12 and try to sacrifice some stones at bottom.

Another idea is to keep on attackin his middle group and secure the cut with something like M8, The idea here is just to get time to play F12 as in the attack, if he answers, the O6 cut is secured. But it's no real attack in my eyes. As black i would then start something with my two stones at D13, maybe invade the corener or try to connect outside or both.

P.S.

Maybe M9 is a better attack, but thats too complicated for me right now .