Extend.

It’s been a while. I haven’t actually reread through the moves, only his last one to make sure we are where I thought we were. I’ve been occasionally glancing at this position in my head, trying to find a trap to set. In all those mental glances, these stones were one line down. So I guess I’m even more compressed than I thought.

In related news, I can’t find any traps to set. I’m just going to keep on chugging, and hope he messes up endgame. He should be able to get something good on the bottom left, but if he continues to play over passive then I have a chance.

I have a feeling that he’s not too bad at endgame, though, since I think he is way too territorial and the most likely way that that could have been reinforced is if he wins low territory endgame style games a lot. So prospects are bleak, but maybe he’s gonna allow me some aji that I’m not supposed to have.

I remember this thought process from before the pause. I'm confident black will need to answer for his bottom side group however I'm not confident he can't protect it in sente using the weakness of my centre stones. If he defends the group in gote then I probably complete the left hand side with another move but it's tough to pick one I can't see a nice shape move for me at the moment.

Two space jump.
Shoulder hit.

I really didn’t expect this move from him. I think he can’t disconnect this reducing move, and when you reduce past your opponent’s last move it makes that surrounding move very inefficient. If it has impact elsewhere on the board it could still be doing its job - maybe he thought he needed this stone for something to do with my 3-8 stones. We’ll see if he engages in one last fight.

I searched again for some way to play a special move and make good exchanges but it’s really hard to evaluate good exchanges when you can’t see them

I don’t think there’s anything here, but I could be wrong. I haven’t read back over the moves but I think my worst mistake (after the obvious early one to put myself in a handicap game) was my atari in the middle, which was probably a few points smaller than some move on the right side. I’m curious to see how my opinions change when I can see - I’ll probably make two reviews, one with sight and then one with an AI. Beyond being blindfolded, this is my first correspondence game since I was 10 kyu, so I’m curious to see whether the kind of mistakes I made are typical or different from my normal mistakes.

But I’m not totally giving up just yet! If he continues with some inaccuracy I’ll be barely behind as we start the more mathematical endgame. I used to win almost every game that went to counting when I was his level (though admittedly I didn’t play that many games that went to counting )

I guess black has read that he's able to rescue this group with moves against my centre group? I'm not sure if he has to give me a few stones though?

I feel like I'm playing way beneath my strength right now. Have not played other than this game since mid December. Mostly no go content in that time either in order to focus on my exam in April.

Connect.
Threat to kill.

I’m going back through the game and mentally marking down the endgame continuations as I do. It’s maybe a little unpure, since I wasn’t taking such rigorous notice the first time through, but I’m no longer visualizing using an empty board, since there’s not as much need to read out the collisions of different local shapes anymore. It’s still really quite hard to keep a mental tally, I was handling it much better when remembering just shapes. Anyway I haven’t gotten back to the last ko threat part where my eyeshape on the bottom was defined yet, so I could be dying on the bottom by playing this. I don’t think I remember being that weak, and I feel like I ought to play reasonably quickly to be polite to him anyway, so here goes!

I’m pretty sure this is the correct way to play locally. He’s going to have to take and then when I turn it’s still sente against his group, I believe. Actually, if he plays hane in response, I can hane too and he still has to respond. So I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to play away just yet. The squeeze on his outside four stones gives me nice profit while I put him on 6 points in the corner - I don’t think I could dream of a better result.

Actually, if my shape on the bottom is strong and I can counter his attack on my three stones, the game should be just about even. I guess that means I have to be more critical of any endgame mistakes I make when I review

Required to save the corner.
Very typically of me (and perhaps kyu players) I was focused on the interesting ideas I had and not on the interesting ideas my opponent had. I didn't actually read what that invasion move did.

However I think black still needs to play on the bottom side to live? In my head 6-5 would kill (5-7 might be cleaner?) but I could be overlooking something obvious or something tricky around 7-10ish.

Feeling fairly impaired by lack of go at this point.

Turn.
Threat to kill.

I’m rather embarrassed, I only noticed later last night that my previous exchange allowed him to cut by push 5-14 and wedge at 6-13. I’d thought I had one more line of free space and could ladder it, but that’s running into his 3-10 stone. So, uh, it’s gonna be fun to try to save all my stones once my sente is done. There seems to be a lot of aji, so I think I shouldn’t have to give up too much. Still haven’t seen my bottom side shape though, so this could be dicey.

Still paying for not paying enough attention to Black's good move.
I'm still unclear how black will handle both these stones and the bottom side group.

Hane.
Threat to kill.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do on my next move. If I sacrifice my 3-8 stones with a move like 3-11 this still was okay, though not game winning. Hopefully I can find a nicer way, though. The aji up here can’t be useful for more than this hane, so I’m playing it now. Maybe if he plays something crazy I won’t have to worry as much.

Pain pain pain!
It seems unlikely that my counter attack on these stones (if black has to return to the bottom side group) won't be enough for this reduction. Either that or black can play so confidently as he has a strategy to save the bottom side group and doesn't need to come back?

With the time since the last move, it may appear that I've been distracted from the game, but I really haven't. Almost every day since the last move, I've taken at least 5 minutes to try to find an idea here. Multiple moves seem so close to working that I get this tingling in my bones, but everything I've looked at appears to have a concrete refutation. The problem with aji-searching while blindfolded is that it's so much harder to convince myself that I've exhausted every possibility.

Still, it's time to decide. I'm going to be doing my best shot at an accurate count of the finished endgame where I just back off with a tigers mouth at C11 tomorrow. If he can make a generously-sized endgame mistake and still win, then I'm going to play the trickiest move I can right now and go down in flames. If he could lose with one moderate endgame mistake, then I'll back off and see how the endgame goes.

In other news, I got a new computer recently, just in time for isolation

I immediately hopped on Tygem, and managed an 8-game winning streak, so I think I might be a Tygem 6d for the first time by Monday. I also beat a 2600 in 13x13 for the first time on GoQuuest recently, so life is going good on my couch over here

I'm also going to be streaming again, starting this weekend, so check out http://www.twitch.tv/telegraphgo at some point for some sweet Lee Changho game coverage. I gotta get my endgame sharpened up!