Life In 19x19

Posted: **Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:55 pm**

I just lost by 7.5 points which I'm proud of. Still I wonder where I made the biggest mistake. IMO it was my move 99.

Posted: **Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:22 pm**

1) I don't like move 13.

Sure, at move 11, you have to play the atari at O5 to keep him from taking his natural shape move there himself, but you seem to have thought of O5 as an integral part of your group.
IMHO, it is not. It is just a forcing move to impede his shape. Play it, forget about it, and play a move that fits with the rest of your stones.

I would have played move 13 at N3.

2) But once you have commited yourself with O5, you still could get something resembling eye space with 15 at M2. Letting him have M2 leaves your group heavy and vulnerable.

3) Move 41 had to be the extension at K8.

4) If you are going to play 46 at C3, why not follow up with 48 at B4?

5) Move 99 does not look too bad. If you don't play it, the the resulting weakness probably allows him to either live on the upper side or extend into the upper side from the upper left corner.

Regardless, once you lose the race in the lower left and let him have that monster ponnuki in the middle, the game is probably over.

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 6:23 am**

Joaz Banbeck wrote:1) I don't like move 13.

Sure, at move 11, you have to play the atari at O5 to keep him from taking his natural shape move there himself, but you seem to have thought of O5 as an integral part of your group.
IMHO, it is not. It is just a forcing move to impede his shape. Play it, forget about it, and play a move that fits with the rest of your stones.

I would have played move 13 at N3.

You may be right and I played the wrong direction there.

2) But once you have commited yourself with O5, you still could get something resembling eye space with 15 at M2. Letting him have M2 leaves your group heavy and vulnerable.

Do you mean playing n2 with move 17 as black? I thought that was not as big as making san-rensei - at least it doesn't look so^^.

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 6:41 am**

To me it looks like you lost a lot of points between 115 and 119. The two moves 115 & 119 did not surround much in the end, and to me it looks like 117 should have been at 118 (mutual damage).

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 6:52 am**

jts wrote:To me it looks like you lost a lot of points between 115 and 119. The two moves 115 & 119 did not surround much in the end,

That's a good point and I agree I just don't see a lot of bigger alternatives.

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 7:41 am**

The crime for Black in the opening is :b29:

. After the ponnuki of :w20:

, the Black orphan on K-03 is horribly placed, right next to the White strength. Ed Lee would disapprove. The play should go

:b29:

L-04

M-04, capturing one stone
:b31:

M-05

K-04

M-03, ko

L-02

At this point it looks OK to atari at K-05 and sacrifice the K-03 stone, make a wall, and then play the keima at Q-06. (The keima could have been played earlier, as well, instead of sanrensei or the extension on the left side, for instance.)

:b41:

should be a hane at J-08. (If you don't like the reply of the atari at K-08, play :b39:

at L-07.) The atari, :w42:

, was huge.

And yes, :b99:

would be better at R-06. That move carries a threat.

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:24 am**

I'm KGS 1-dan as well, so this is just another opinion.
In the end I would have freely sacrificed the bottom stones and defended another part of the Moyo : )

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 9:41 am**

Bill Spight wrote:After the ponnuki of , the Black orphan on K-03 is horribly placed, right next to the White strength.

Thanks, Bill. I'm not good enough to comment on this game,
but the :w30:

ponnuki was indeed the first thing that caught my eye, that something may not be right...

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 10:55 am**

I don't like move 5 at k3. Approach a corner instead. I'm not going to call it a mistake at your level, but if you pattern search pro games (I can't at the moment*) I'd bet very few if any play it. One key reason it's normal to approach corners before playing the sides is if you pay side first and then approach your opponent can try to choose a corner variation that leaves your initial side stone as a poorly placed extension, as in this game. If you approach first then you can choose a good place for your extension. Of course if you approach first they may pincer in which case the play will likely develop in a way in which you don't extend (e.g with 4-4 take the corner, or double approaches, or jumps and counter-pincer fights) but on such an empty board that's totally fine. If you allow a fear of pincers to lead to too much preference for wedging plays on the side you are giving your opponent opportunities to make your stones misplaced. Of course there are positions in which splitting sides is better than approaching but that's usually because there is some big moyo you want to break up. In summary, it's a lot harder for a corner approach to end up misplaced than a stone on the side, so approach first as it's against the rules to move stones once you've played them.

P.S. at PC now, 1 of 1802
P.P.S actually 0 pro games, that hit was one of my KGS games when I was 11k, the dangers of including not just pro games in your kombilo database!

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:01 pm**

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:12 pm**

Uberdude wrote:I don't like move 5 at k3.

Here is my thinking behind me playing radical split fusekis.

1. Since I did it I jumped from 1k to 1d

and I was a 1k for a couple of years, so that means something to me^^.

2. Pro's did play that style in the 1930s, not now anymore, but there are a lot of games where - even today - players split "retarded", i.e. not right away but after a couple of more moves. There is no reasearch that shows that early splits have fundamental flaws.

3. Yes, my opponent gets at least one shimari for free, but in return I deny him a framework while I still hold that option (with white I always have komi instead). Also I deny him pincering me and building up early. Instead he stays "flat" longer and you can attack or use this flatness a lot easier.

4. Split fuseki make games smallish and complex. Often you can just win by your opponent making a mistake because of the complexity and often when you lost an important battle there rises another opportunity (because e.g. now you got enough influence to attack this other group).

5. I have angst of moyos, yes. If I see a moyo the pure largeness of the moyo drives me crazy and I invade with all the greed I have. I am the kind of guy who wants to have a 120 pts. moyo while my opponent has 25 points - I want all and I do not want my opponent to have anything (I consider that a deep character flaw and it didn't get better after 10 years of playing Go, so maybe it's determined within my genes^^).

Like with any angst you have two choices: deal with it or avoid it and I feel I do not limit me too much in just avoiding those framework fusekis. I also feel that this fuseki type is good for your creative juices to flow, because you find yourself very early outside of the standard ways of playing and outside of database material.

6. Another point is that you can always treat the split move lightly as an ajimaker or bait trap (= you invite your opponent to get your stone in the hope he doesn't realize that while he's spending all those moves to kill it you spend smart moves on the outside to make more benefit at the end).

7. In Mastergo I find basically one game with that pattern (the split is one section further). But if you look for pattern you'll find some of those splits early in the game. At fuseki.info you find also some games, esp, on Tygem^^. It seems that kind of opening is seldom, but is played once in a while. It's like a san-san-opening^^.

Posted: **Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:16 pm**

added sequence in upper left that I'm not sure about.

Posted: **Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:04 am**

W can live in that variation with b16 at b18 instead.

Posted: **Thu Oct 31, 2013 12:22 pm**

Better players have commented already and I am not sure I am in a position to lecture. Yet a few additions...

If I want to settle a group I would play N3 instead of O3 - i.e. the smaller extension. This is / was a common continuation after splitting a side in similar situations.

If I play O3 and see O4, N4, P3. I would look for O2 as first variation to consider (after atari). See [sl=44PointLowApproachAttachBlockJoseki]this page[/sl] on Sensei's Library. O2 is the kind of move I never see in amateur games. Looks not so impressive first, but has some nice follow up hours later in the game. Your choice probably aimed to help your framework, but K3 ended in a really bad spot. N3 may be overconcentrated (?) but at least it doesn't waste a stone altogether. P.S. Just saw sodesune proposed it as well.

After this start I would be very surprised if White felt threatened even once during the game. A framework is no good, when gently reducing it is already sufficient for the win, because your opponent got easy territory already. Losing "only by points" is not any better than to go down fighting after positional judgment tells you to complicate the situation. In this game you couldn't even complicate things.

Posted: **Thu Oct 31, 2013 12:59 pm**

tapir wrote:... See [sl=44PointLowApproachAttachBlockJoseki]this page[/sl] on Sensei's Library. O2 is the kind of move I never see in amateur games. Looks not so impressive first, but has some nice follow up hours later in the game...

Nice research. :clap:

Pippen wrote:
Joaz Banbeck wrote:...
2) But once you have committed yourself with O5, you still could get something resembling eye space with 15 at M2. Letting him have M2 leaves your group heavy and vulnerable.

Do you mean playing n2 with move 17 as black? I thought that was not as big as making san-rensei - at least it doesn't look so^^.

No, I meant M2.

N2, IMHO, is no good for you. Playing N2 threatens to start a ko which does not hurt him much if he loses ( for he still can evade the ko with Q6 ) but which hurts you a lot if you lose it.
You have 4 stones on the lower side with ugly shape. M2 improves your shape, not only giving you an eye, but indirectly - with K3 - protecting the cut at M4.

Life In 19x19

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My (1d) first even game against a 3d

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Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d

Re: My (1d) first even game against a 3d