I agree that focusing on that aji vs weak groups distinction could be very helpful to you based on some of these games. Also, when you give your opponent a solid position on the outside, it has a certain value. In the latest game you posted, some of the positions you were giving your opponent had a higher value than what you gained by living with your stones. So when you are playing, it is always a good idea to think of what stones the opponent will get at the end of the sequence and whether those will be more valuable than what you are trying to get. As skydyr mentioned, sealing you in is enormously valuable to your opponent. So is solidifying his territory by attacking a heavy group (move 79+). So I think playing lightly, sabaki, leaving aji instead of trying to live with every stone, and avoiding getting sealed in are things that could give you a better result.

That's about it for my thoughts, I think I will leave this one to the stronger players now.

A few comments.



Edit: Added variation in the variation for

Edit: Corrected variation at

Edit: Extended another of the variations for clarity

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

@Bill: Thank you! Looks like lots of mistakes there.

@Splatted: That game you referenced was very nice! Yes I like your definitions of weak vs. aji stones. Will try and keep that in mind.

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我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

198 moves and the game was over, perhaps sooner...



Comments? Suggestions? Scoldings?

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我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

So where am I at the moment: Quite demoralized actually by some recent reviewed games from the NGA. It's is like the stones I am placing on the board are in fact the worst move at that time. I wonder if high dan players are slightly autistic and don't understand that their words have meaning and impact on another human being? Of course I am generalizing. They say Mathematicians/Scientist can be like this as well.
My biggest problem- I don't read. I prefer to play on instinct and feeling. If I try something out but don't read it out completely then I get berated for it, but doesn't God love a trier? 頑張ります!
What are your biggest problems at the moment?

I think I'll go and study some Kanji 漢字 now to cheer myself up.

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Not reading is a problem for me too as we've discussed. I think it's just a bad habit that needs to be gotten rid of. Perhaps we don't read because reading is hard and playing on instinct is easy?

Some comments:

Move 9: When black has played the joseki in the bottom left, the aim is generally to make points on the lower side, but when black then pincers white this way, white is naturally pushed into the area that black wants to make points. In addition, with the far approach to the 3-4 stone, a pincer is less severe than against a more normal approach, and being high makes it harder to attack as well, so white is able to attack more freely without worrying about his group. Instead, black could consider reinforcing the bottom with something like a keima, or making a normal corner enclosure and reinforcing the two stones on the left when white presses them.

Move 17: Move 15 aims to connect the two black stones in exchange for letting white take territory on the bottom, but this move asks to take territory on the bottom in exchange for the stone on the left. This leads to black's broken shape.

Move 31: Another broken shape. After this move, any attempts by black to strengthen one of the two bottom groups will result in the other getting weaker. Consider connecting under instead.

Move 43: There is no need for black to run to the center here, as black is already alive. Instead, pushing white from above to make him run to the center would set up a huge black moyo.

Move 75: Here, black has great moyo potential in the top right center, but when black pushes white from below, white needs to move out to get eyespace, and the only place to do that is by pushing into black's potential moyo. If black played O10 instead of white, white could make an eye on the right, but wouldn't damage black's territory that much in the process, and black would have a lot more gain in the center.

Move 125: Splitting white to get an attackable group is a great idea, but locally, white is stronger than black, so you need to make sure that your attacking stone can't be cut off, or that you can live underneath if that's how white tries to deal with it.

Later on, black spends a lot of time trying to kill the white group based around p6, but that group is pretty strong and probably not killable. If you are going to attack, you need to have an aim aside from killing, or you end up with weak shapes and often ruin your own territory in the process. You can think of it as being a cowboy; you want the opponents stones to survive, but you press them so they run in particular directions. If your opponent is conceding huge walls or some nice territory to you in exchange for running on dame points, you have already won.

I know it's kind of cliche, but you may want to consider looking at a book on shape, or at Attack and Defense.

Regarding the criticism of moves, it can come off as harsh, but unless there's something particularly brilliant to emphasize, I don't know that you actually learn much from hearing that your play is fine, unless you have a question about whether it is in an area or not. It is easier to talk about this if you make a mention of your intentions and ideas behind the moves as well, since sometimes the right idea is there, but one has trouble finding the right move to implement it, or misreads. Not all players have the same idea with a given move, after all. You can also safely assume that apart from the moves criticised, the other moves are all unremarkable because they are normal, and therefor good.

@skydyr
Thank you for the comments! I am referring to blatant demoralizing comments rather than constructive criticism which I am all for. I am reading both those books at the moment actually, but bad habits are hard to prevent when one has been playing a certain way for an year and a half.

@Boidhre: I agree, reading is hard and playing on instinct is easy. Too much blitz is the problem there.

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Had a game online today. A fighting game until I fell asleep and lost the centre stones. Passion is coming back for the game after the horrendousness earlier in the week.
I think it was over by move 144.

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Games below dan level are almost always won by fighting mistakes or outright blunders. The quickest way to improve at your level is to get better at fighting. Studying tesuji can help with this, as can game reviews, but there is no substitute for reading.

In earlier posts, you indicated that you do not like reading and prefer to play on instinct. Sorry if I sound discouraging, but that is going to hold back your progress. A professional has good enough instincts to get away with this (when playing an amateur), but you and I do not.

Reading takes time and effort. In this game, it appears you played the first 100 moves at a pace of 6 seconds per move. That is way too fast to permit serious reading. I suggest playing some much slower games, at least when you intend to learn from those games.

As a side anecdote, a professional player once visited my Go club and played some blitz games against the strongest players. He gave 6-Dans a handicap of 6 stones in games with a time limit of 10 seconds per move. Every one of the amateurs played a good opening and had a huge lead well into the middle game, but all lost badly in the middle game fighting and resigned before the endgame. The amateurs were a bit surprised by this result, but the professional pretty much knew this would happen, based on the time limit.

Enough of the demoralizing comments and on to the constructive criticism:

Good strategic decision, no reading needed (yet)! Since B has a large capture at P18 for later, W gains very little by capturing the N17 stone. B should be happy to give up this stone in return for strength on the other side.

This is a common position worthy of some study and reading practice. The game move is not bad, but a better continuation would be to hane on top, trying to force W into a more over-concentrated shape. This would be a good instinct or tesuji. However, it should still be backed up by reading. In particular, can W respond by cutting? Try out some continuations to convince yourself that this would be unreasonable. Further question for study -- if W answers L15 at M15, how can B play to gain a big advantage? There are at least three continuations to read out.

B had a golden opportunity here to push through at D15 and capture something. Read a few moves into this and you will see that W ends up with too many cutting points to defend and collapses. You devoted 10 seconds to this move, but if you had spent a full minute or two, you could have secured a big win.

This is a strong counter-attack, and it might be very good, but it gets very complicated very quickly. The simple continuation at H14 should also be considered. I am not sure which is better (and unfortunately even a lot of reading might not help me here).

Hane and connect is good intuition and great shape, but could B just push through M15 and cut, capturing three stones? It would take me far more than three seconds to read this out, but since it potentially ends the game, it seems worth the effort.

At this point (or preferably earlier), I would pause to read out the life-and-death problem here. If B gets to play H18, is this group alive? In the game, the question did not arise, because W did not block at move 70. If W did block, how would B continue? Can B cut and win the capturing race? Or does B have to live first? If B does live, can W also live or does that leave W dead?

Great move. B appears to be in control of the game now.
Thin but nice try, offering lots of fighting chances. The rest of the game is too complicated for me.

Yes! I quite agree. Agreeing is one the first step though, putting this into practice is another, but from now on I will try and take more than 6 seconds on moves at the start




When I read pro games I am amazed at what happens from the middle game to the end. What I thought would be black's territory,say, turns out to be white’ｓand everything then is turned upsidedown. Pros live in an amazing world.




Not demoralizing at all! In fact the comments are very encouraging, thank you! 有難う御座いました!

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我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

久しぶりみなさん
I think the joy is coming back for me at last. Myself and Boidhre are playing some nice games and I quite enjoy our rivalry.
Will post some games later...

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

A thought popped into my head.
Why do we use alot of Japanese terms for go (in English that is) and not made it our own?
Any thoughts anyone?

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Because Japanese players introduced it to Europe and we did not have handy terms already in English for the likes of atari. Generally with languages words will be borrowed, not invented by native speakers, you can see this very much with Irish where a huge amount has been borrowed from English by native speakers (even if officially there are words invented), e.g. microwave, if you said "oigheann micreathoinne" to a native speaker they'd look at you funny if they understood you at all.

Really is this true? I'm not convinced! It has been in Europe since the 16th century. It seems the foreign Japanese popularized it rather than introduced it, http://www.allaboutgo.com/history/europe-history.html, but this is already a 130 years ago!

How about in different European languages, are there any alternatives for atari, joseki, fuseki etc..?

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我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

It is true. The most popular book for bringing Go to the west came from someone who went to Japan. With his book, he brought back the go terms from Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Korschelt

For a bit more info.

However, it existed in Europe before that!

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Is there any alternatives for Atari in English? Or even joseki/ fuseki?

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

Existed doesn't matter. What matters is how it was popularized.

Thanks for the information about Oskar Korschelt!


Well, what matters depends on what one wants to know, right? I find the fact that Go existed in Europe before that quite interesting. Probably b/c I like to know all I can and many things matter to me

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?