From what I can tell, one of your problems (and it's a common one among weaker players, including myself when I started) is that you struggle to recognize where the big points are on the board. That's what I've focused on most in this review. None of your groups died or got too weak in this game, so I couldn't focus on vulnerable groups all that much, but hopefully this will be of use to you anyway.

[sgf-full](;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[0.50]
PW[The Many Faces of Go]PB[Philip Taylor]WR[18k]BR[19k]DT[2011-01-11]RE[B+Resign]VW[]
;B[cp]
;W[pq]
;B[qd]
;W[ec]
;B[cc]
;W[qo]
(;B[rq]C[This is a clear case of putting too much value on the corner.For one, you can't live in here: you don't have enough room (see variations for white's next move). However, even if you could live in here, you would have only 2-5 points total while white gets overwhelming influence.

To put it another way, there is a proverb that says "The second line is the route to defeat." Playing on the second line before the endgame will often give you a very low position with very few points while your opponent gets overwhelming influence. See variation 3 for what I mean.

See: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Crawling]
(;W[mq]LB[jp:B][jq:A]C[Nothing move by MFoG, if it doesn't kill the corner, it should at least extend to A or B, or play elsewhere.]
;B[eq]C[Good.]
;W[qj]
(;B[oc]LB[de:A]C[I think 'A' would be bigger, but this isn't terrible.]
;W[qg]
;B[qm]TR[qd][qm]SQ[qg][qj]C[This is a stone that is bound to become weak, while you provoke white to kill your corner stone at the same time. Both of your triangled stones are too far away from the white stones to put them under a severe attack, and your latest move will have no base once white blocks off the corner. It will be a very weak, useless stone.]
(;W[hc]LB[de:A]C[:O! Locally, white should have played 'A', but I think the variation is bigger.]
;B[lc]
;W[iq]
;B[gq]LB[de:A][dj:B][ro:C]C['A', 'B', 'C' are much better points. This is too small.]
;W[kq]LB[ce:C][de:A][cf:B][ci:H][cj:G][ck:F][io:D][rp:E]C[Soooooooooo passive and small. Don't emulate play like this. All of the marked points are 10 times better than MFoG's play here.]
;B[ro]C[Good move: connect your weak stones to make them strong. This is why white should have prevented that itself.]
;W[qp]
;B[rp]
;W[jc]
;B[cj]
;W[dm]
;B[cm]
;W[cl]
;B[bm]
;W[el]
;B[dk]
;W[ek]
;B[dl]
;W[ej]
;B[bk]C[What are you afraid of? Check if white is actually threatening anything.]
;W[ci]
;B[em]TR[dm]C[Since this stone is not a cutting stone, it is not all that valuable to capture or for white to save. That top-left corner is still bigger.]
;W[cf]
;B[ce]
;W[de]
;B[dc]
;W[df]
(;B[dd]C[What does this do? It only strengthens white (aji keshi) and makes bad shape for you (empty triangle). ]
;W[ed]
;B[pp]C[(This isn't a ladder-breaker)]
;W[qq]
;B[ee]
(;W[ef]
;B[fe]
(;W[ff]
;B[ge]
;W[gf]
;B[he]
;W[hf]
;B[ie]
;W[if]
;B[je]
;W[kd]
;B[ke]
;W[ld]
;B[le]
;W[md]
;B[mc]
;W[me]
;B[mf]
;W[nf]
;B[lf]
;W[ne]
;B[ng]
;W[og]
;B[of]
;W[oe]
;B[pf]
;W[pg]
;B[nh]
;W[qn]
;B[rn]
;W[rm]
;B[rl]
;W[di]
;B[bi]
;W[bh]
;B[ah]
;W[ag]
;B[ai]
;W[bg]
;B[ae]
;W[be]
;B[bd]
;W[cd]
;B[ac]
;W[ce]
;B[eb]
;W[db]
;B[cb]
;W[da]
;B[ea]
;W[po]
;B[op]
;W[oq]
;B[oo]
;W[nq]
;B[om]
;W[mg]
;B[lh]
;W[mh]
;B[mi]
;W[li]
;B[lg]
;W[mj]
;B[nj]
;W[lj]
;B[nk]
;W[pk]
;B[ol]
;W[pl]
;B[pm]
;W[kh]
;B[ki]
;W[kj]
;B[ji]
;W[jh]
;B[ih]
;W[ii]
;B[jj]
;W[ij]
;B[jk]
;W[ik]
;B[jl]
;W[il]
;B[lk]
;W[jm]
;B[kk]
;W[im]
;B[jg]
;W[dn]
;B[cn]
;W[en]
;B[fm]
;W[fn]
;B[gl]
;W[gn]
;B[hh]
;W[hm]
;B[gk]
;W[gi]
;B[hn]
;W[gj]
;B[ho]
;W[gm]
;B[ei]
;W[dj]
;B[eh]
;W[fg]
;B[ch]
;W[dh]
;B[lo]
;W[mo]
;B[pn]
;W[lp]
;B[lr]
;W[ko]
;B[ln]
;W[kn]
;B[lm]
;W[ck]
;B[bl]
;W[bj]
;B[aj]
;W[ak]
;B[al]
;W[aj]
;B[do]
;W[gh]
;B[lq]
;W[jp]
;B[nn]
;W[hp]
;B[gp]
;W[go]
;B[ep]
;W[gd]
;B[kc]
;W[jd]
;B[nd]
;W[od]
;B[nc]
;W[id]
;B[hd]
;W[gc]
;B[ib]
;W[ic]
;B[jb]
;W[kb]
;B[lb]
;W[pc]
;B[pd]
;W[qc]
;B[qf]
;W[rd]
;B[rf]
;W[rc]
;B[pi]
;W[qi]
;B[qh]
;W[rh]
;B[ph]
;W[rg]
;B[sf]
;W[si]
;B[pb]
;W[ob]
;B[nb]
;W[ra]
;B[qb]
;W[oa]
;B[na]
;W[km]
;B[pa]
;W[qr]
;B[np]
;W[mp]
;B[mn]
;W[hg]
;B[jf]
;W[fl]
;B[hr]
;W[ir]
;B[hs]
;W[is]
;B[fr]
;W[hi]
;B[kg]
;W[kl]
;B[ll]
;W[rr]
;B[sr]
;W[hb]
;B[ka]
;W[re]
;B[rb]
;W[sa]
;B[se]
;W[sb]
;B[sd]
;W[sc]
;B[qa])
(;W[eb]C[Can your corner live? If you're not so sure, are you really prepared to play like this? End of comments.]))
(;W[fe]C[Try reading out the ladder again. Read it all the way through. It's tricky at the end, but the result will surprise you. Perhaps you'll even catch other players making this same mistake, and then you can slaughter them .])
(;W[be]C[If you can live (which is a bit of an 'if') it will be terribly small. If you die, white doesn't need to worry about your cut just now.]))
(;B[eb]
;W[fc]
;B[be]C[A better way to play.]))
(;W[rp]C[Now what?]))
(;B[de]
;W[hc]
;B[ci]TR[de]C[This is a big point for both your top stones and your bottom stones. Note that because your triangled stone is high, it wants another move along that side in order to feel "happy." If your triangled stone was on the third line, it wouldn't be as good. Meanwhile, along the bottom-left, you're starting to form a large area. White can still invade, but then you can attack white and profit from chasing MFoG around the board.]))
(;W[rp]C[This should kill.]
(;B[qq]
;W[pp]
;B[pr]
;W[or]
;B[qs]
;W[rr])
(;B[pr]
;W[or]
;B[qr]
;W[oq]
;B[rs]
;W[sr]))
(;W[qr]
;B[qp]
;W[pp]
;B[ro]C[Black will start pushing on the second line, which is a horrible, terrible result.]
;W[qn]
;B[rn]
;W[qm]
;B[rl]
;W[ql]
;B[rk]
;W[rm]
;B[sm]C[If you can't feel how bad this result is for black, look at it every day until you do.]))
(;B[eq]LB[dj:A]C[A good move: encloses the corner. In the future, you can follow up with a move at 'A'.])
(;B[de]C[Another good move. Picture the difference between you playing here and white playing here.]))[/sgf-full]

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Thank you, Dusk Eagle : I very much appreciate your review. I am aware of (some of) my weaknesses, and when I was playing humans regularly I learned to avoid a few of them, but these days I am very much out of practice and am having trouble even getting back to 17 kyu against MFoG (I'm winning more than I'm losing now, but until I start seeing the occasional 16 kyu rating by the program I will know that I am still very very rusty !). I've just finished another game against MFoG, and again it resigned, but I still lost a couple of small groups through complete stupidity on my part. I will now stop playing and work through your review. Thanks once again.

Later : OK, worked through the review, which was very helpful. I will work through it a few times more to make sure I haven't failed to absorb something. But a comment, after some introspection : it is not that I don't recognise that the moves I make are frequently small; it is more that I lack the confidence to play the big move, because experience has taught me that I lack the skill to make proper use of such a move subsequently. I think that this is one of the down-sides of playing against a computer with its skill level set to match one's own : it is very easy for an 18 kyu human to play small moves against an 18 kyu computer yet still come out on top; whereas if I were to set the computer to play at shodan level, I would have to play a completely different class of game. Little moves would be punished mercilessly, and only well thought out big moves would have any chance of succeeding. I would still lose, of course -- that goes without saying -- but it might help me to up my game. What do you think ?

Much later : well, I decided to investigate your variant in which you play W14 at S4; I set MFoG to play at shodan level, then tried various approaches in the T1 corner until I found one that allowed me to defend the corner against MFoG, and then used that as a base from which to develop. I had to considerably increase the time allowed to prevent White from losing on time, and finally set it to 3 hours/player, of which White used about 2 (I used about 1). The game ended with a win by White of course, but the margin was nowhere near as great as I anticipated: I lost by 85,5 points. But most interesting to me was the fact that I learned so much more by playing against MFoG at shodan level; when it plays at 18 kyu, which is where I estimate myself to be, it makes so many apparent mistakes that no "big moves" are needed to defeat it : it can be defeated simply by small, tactical, moves. But at shodan level, these little moves just don't work. I also began to appreciate the real benefit of playing sacrifice stones at cutting points.

So, thank you once again for your analysis, and also my thanks to Magicwand & Violence for their comments, which followed your message. I now intend to play a number of unranked games against MFoG set to play at shodan level, to see just how much I can learn by playing against a much stronger opponent.

strong dan level knows exactly how safe your group is.
we do not need to re-analize (<--that is funny) on every move because we already expect opponent's attack before it happens and finished reading prior.
we do not memorize all possible shape of go. we read.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

^What he said.




When we have a group, even if it looks solid, a lot of times, I think of the potential attacks that can happen. "If only I had this stone... if only this was here..." etc. Then as you play with that in mind, you can come up with a way to induce the conditions for a strong attack. It's a lot of reading, and some creativity.

Likewise, with my own groups, I try to think of the ways my opponent can attack them, and come up with a response in my head. Effectively, it's like bracing for a hit before it comes. You want to have the plan before the move comes. I'm sure we've all been surprised by moves before, and one of the things that hurts the most is a punch that comes from an unexpected direction.




This all reminds me of a quote Mr. Gus Price(Tabemasu) said to me as he watched me playing online.

Me: This group looks so weak... but I've never seen it before, I dunno how to attack it...

Gus: How horrible, you're going to have be creative, why would you ever want to do that at all???

I ended up losing the game.