#12

sorry... missed that post .. appologies ... my coments are pointless...

Like in my game, I went to fast... the way you live is the way you play...

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

They're not at all. It's just when you're weaker you're putting up comments on a game as much to get those comments reviewed as to provide a review yourself.

Hi oca,

It's OK.
You mean to "approach" the corner from F17 direction, not "attack".
To attack a target, the target must be weak.
The W stone at D16, , is not weak; therefore B cannot attack it -- but B can approach it from F17 direction.

Yes indeed, I really meant "approach", but.. I said (or write) "attack" like an uncontroled impulsion..
that's interessing... I have to think about that...
I really feel that to impove my go, I have to work on me with the help of the game, not to work directly on the game itself... strange feeling... thanks for the comment.

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Hi, oca!
This is an interesting question that hasn't been addressed so far.
I played move 18 (at B-15) to defend against a cut (at D-14) and also to threaten the corner. My two stones became too weak after the touch and trapped between the corner and the white stone at C-12. I don't think I could have afforded to tenuki there - though I might be wrong about that.

Your other questions that have already been answered tell of good insight .

Outside of reading, someone's main problem with go tends to be how they approach the game mentally (e.g. not being aggressive enough where warranted, being too aggressive when not warranted etc).

oh ok I got it...
With my limited knowledge, I think I may have played D14 directly to prevent the cut. but that will not threaten the corner and would been a very small move.
That's just that I dont like to play a diagonal move which doesn't have two way to connect back (I'm a bit shy I suppose)

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

A quick review:

skydyr: thank you for your review!

Here is yet another game. Finally I'm peeping through that wall! If you'd like me to stop posting games, please tell me so. I'm thinking there are a lot of people in my shoes (I'm not entirely sure this phrase exists in English), so these may be useful for others as well.

- white move 10: huh? I didn't see this coming. From now on I intended to respond to invasions high in order to separate from the "premade" escape route and also to put pressure on the tengen stone.
- black move 11: I didn't want that huge white moyo to form, thus I diverged from the joseki. I thought it'd be ok, since white omitted the last step too.
- white 14 stepped willingly into an existing pincer so I decided to defend the other side. Playing high because of the tengen stone and also to put more pressure on the invading stone.
- black 17 felt a little bit over-concentrated by I didn't want complications there. I was content with white living small in my corner while I get strong towards the side.
- black 19 is probably bad-ish. I wanted to keep that living group separated from tengen.
- black 25 should probably have been a simple shimari instead
- black 27 again to separate
- I don't know how to best answere white 36
- black 39 again to separate
- black 49: I didn't know how to deal with white 48 so instead I chose to fix my shape
- white 50-52: thank you for making me strong
- black 65: I was tempted to cut but decided it was too early
- white 66: I think this was an overplay. It was time to strike
- around black 75: I knew something will die on the bottom. I thought I would be able to save the J-3 stone though.
- black 93: probably cowardly. I didn't want to lose that big center territory. I wanted to keep those white stones dead at all cost.
- black 101: I was aware of the double atari coming. I constantly worried for the M-10 group.
- black 107: probably Q-12 would've been better (despite the snap back)
- black 115: I'm again lucky. That N-5 stone helps a lot.
- black 129: still lucky. I can either live or capture - I think...

oh yes I like it
on black move 5, is there a reason to approch the weak side of komoku on the 4th line instead of the thrid line on E17?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ------------
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . X .
$$ | . . O . . .
$$ | . . . . . .[/go]

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Instead of a full game review i will comment on two of your comments.


I think this is bad reasoning. First of all the correct way to handle an invasion is to look at the specific position and then make decision on how to get the most profit out of it. Sometimes that means blocking the escape route to the center but sometimes it means letting the invasion escape to secure surrounding territory while your opponent has to play dame moves to escape.
Second if you block an invasions escape route your opponent will try to life locally. Unless that is not possible this means an exchange of territory for influence. You give up your territory to the small invasion group to get outside influence in exchange. However with whites tengen stone using any outside influence becomes difficult. You can't expect to make a moyo with influence geared towards the center and attacking the tengen stone itself is also really hard as it has 4 sides to escape too.
So capping every invasion by white to avoid its escape in the center is only going to work for you if you can kill these invasions and that is something that is nearly impossible unless your opponent tries unreasonable invasions.


Joseki moves are joseki for a reason. While omitting joseki moves to tenuki can be good in most cases we amateurs do it for the wrong reasons. For one the tengen move from white doesn't need an immediate answer it is gote. So you are free to choos where to play next. And that means you are free to gain profit from whites decision to omitt a joseki move. I think attaching at C15 would be the first move for this - that is what whites joseki move defends against. I'm not certain on the continuation but i am sure you can get more profit out of this position than the actual game.


Playing the high extension may be playable but you don't put a lot of pressure on the invading stone. Since white plays into an existing pincer this means you have the local advantage but the extension leaves the corner open for white to life. He can either slide (like he did) or invade at 3-3 in both cases he can life and succeed at the invasion. If you want to apply pressure on the stone, kick it first with P17, white should then nobi towards the center - then you play the extension.
The reasoning behind this is, that thanks to the pincer stone white can't get the normal extension from his 2-stone wall and thus becomes overconcentrated. In addition the kick-stone helps the corner. The corner isn't totally safe, an invasion at 3-3 is still possible but white will get less profit from 3-3 than without P17.

I haven't looked at the rest of the game but from your comments it seems you were awefully concerned about whites tengen stone. Don't be. Tengen is rarely played at such an early stage as it was here, which implys it is not such a good move. The effect of tengen has to be considered, especially as it makes invasions for white easier and most ladders now favours white, but apart from that it makes no territory. You don't have to seperate every white stone from tengen to profit from this "mistake". Connecting a stone at the side to the center is usually dame and doesn't make any points, that alone is punishment enough. Let white connect to the center, but take the secure territory in exchange, if you try to seperate every invasion from tengen you are playing into whites hand, as tengen naturally negates your influence you get in exchange.

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Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)

Well, when you approach on the 3rd line, you are often looking to split the corner and get a group on the side. The 4th line approach concedes the corner more in exchange for a position that usually has more influence. It's also a bit lighter, if you might get severely pincered, but it doesn't make territory in the same way. Both approaches are fairly common these days. The high one came into fashion more recently, maybe the mid 20th century, but is played perhaps slightly more frequently than the low. That said, these are just guidelines, as the specific joseki that get chosen can alter the outcome significantly in one direction or the other for each of the approaches. I would venture that pincers are more common against the low stone than the high, but pincers are played pretty frequently against the high stone too, so...

At its most basic, the choice is a question of whether you are treating the 3-4 stone as a 3rd line stone, and reducing it by capping, or as a 4th line stone, and aiming to undermine it, but with either choice lots of complicated fighting is possible. In Takao's newish joseki dictionary, out of maybe 600 pages of the two volumes, almost half is spent on these two approaches to the 3-4 stone, and he spends more than 70 pages on the variations stemming from just one of the pincers:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . X . . . . .
$$ | . . O , . . . 1 . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

EDIT: fixin' my its

I got it. Merci skydyr

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

MagicMagor, EdLee: thank you for your insightful comments.
Yes, the kick was the move! Somehow I didn't even consider it.
During the game I wasn't feeling I was that concerned with the tengen stone. But reading my comments it does seem so indeed.
Also, thank you for mentioning the C-15 "retaliation" idea after the unfinished joseki. Most of the time I have no idea how to punish such divergences.

Yesterday I played a series of really bad games. In the end I managed to win against a strong 6k, but out of 9 games I lost 7, so I'm back to 7k rank now.

- The first game was against a '?' marked opponent. During this game I felt I played well (or rather, ok). Though I think he was much stronger than me. Maybe I could have stood in the game longer were it not for my all or nothing mindset when a large fight erupted (nah, I checked it again, I had no chance).
- Then I played against a ~10k giving 4 handicap and I totally cornered myself ending up in resign.
- Then I played a 5k who slowly grinded me. Cutting everywhere and taking advantage of my mistakes.

These losses destroyed my spirit and I became overly aggressive and sketchy with my reading. This is probably when I'd have had to stop. But I wanted to win because I clung so hard to my projection/illusion that I must be better than 6k now.

- I played an 5k with 2 handicap (because by then I was back to 7k). I was inaccurate and generally played badly - I could have still won had I not misread a simple capturing race (black 116 should have been at G-19).
- Then I played a 6k, me playing inexplicable ad-hoc moves. At this point I was practically raging. The game ended in an epic fight which I could have won after my opponent made a huge mistake - but in the end, I didn't.
- After that I played a 7k. I played moderately bad. My opponent resigned after a simple reading mistake.
- Then I lost to a 6k by simply playing bad.
- Then a 8k totally owned me .
- After that I somewhat regained my calmness. Becoming sleepy and resigned. I played a strong 6k and managed to win because I won an early fight and I managed to keep my advantage.

Were it not for this last game I think I would have a very negative opinion about my skills and potential to ever get better...

I don't want "to polute" your post with a game of mine, but I feel like you are bit disapointed.
So just I wanted to let you know that you are not alone, look at what I did yesterday...
Here we go, I just missed all my readings...

[edit "as suggested by "skydyr"]
the game is here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9899
[/edit]

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

You can also start a new thread in the Improve your game: Study Journals or Game Analysis section.

I think a lot of people browse the forum with the View unread posts link, so it will be seen.

I didn't know about the Study Journals. Thx for mentioning it! Tbh, this thread probably belongs there.

- Since my bad series I played a guest account of unknown strength. It was an interesting game but then he left.
- Then I lost to a 8k because I made a careless mistake and his captured group in the middle of my territory escaped. Despite that it was a good game because I had a clean sense of what I wanted to do during the whole game.
- An unfair game came against a 2k. Unfair because I still think I'm better than 7k so 5 handicap was probably too much. I won and it was an interesting game for me - but I know from experience how unfun it is to play against unfair handicap so I'm kind of sorry for this opponent.
- I won against a 7k. Perhaps he made too many mistakes (and I'm sure I made many myself).
- A chaotic game came with lots of fighting against a 7k which I lost.
- I won against a 8k again. He liked to give me ponnukis for free.
- And then came this game against another guest account of unknown strength. This was a strange game as I didn't feel dominated at all. Yet in the end I lost by 23.5 points, which is a lot! I wonder what I did so wrong:

The short story of the game is that you played against someone significantly stronger than you.

As the game started, black mapped out a large moyo while white set up a slightly smaller one, but ended in sente. White used sente to invade, then played a classic reduction, betting that you couldn't attack the weakish group white tenukied from strongly enough. Once that happened, both sides had center strength, so it ended up small, while white had an invasion breaking up black's sides, and black didn't have the same on white's, so it was easy to play just to maintain the unequal balance and take big endgame points.

As for specifics:

Up to move 12 is fine, but at move 13, this is a very center oriented move, and it's not usually played without a stone around K16 to build up a moyo. Rather than followup with Q12, taking gote with K16 may work best with this move.

White 26: This is a pretty standard reduction. If black is going to push up, you want to go one more before connecting under, at least. Otherwise, white gets this nice turn and no worries. When you end in gote, after white reduced your potential, it's painful.

White 32: While this does threaten to take the corner, it's kind of slow to give this move to white in sente. Now is a great time to start attacking the topside group, or try to cut off the left side stones and set up for a splitting attack.

Through black 49: I'm not sure the shoulder hit was the best attack, but you sealed white in, which is a good result. The problem is that white was the one with the weak group, yet he lived in sente. It's imperative that you take sente away from this to use your newfound wall, or similarly damage white's prospects, if you want to keep the game balanced.

Move 51: Very submissive. There's no reason not to hane, as far as I can tell. Black is strong here, and white is weak, so you can get away with a lot of moves that would be unreasonable in an area with less black influence. In this case, black is alive on both sides, so a cut is meaningless.

Move 59: This looks like it attacks white's eyeshape, but white doesn't need eyeshape when he has an easy connection to set up a great and living wall. It ends up looking too close to white's thickness. Instead, consider working to cut white off from the bottom side. This would let you build power to invade the bottom later.

Move 65: Usually, if black is going to invade in some way, black attaches to the high stone, comes in one space lower, or shoulder hits the low stone. This is somewhat concessionary, but it is a reduction. The problem is that white's wall is so strong, so the reduction can become a liability.

Move 79: If black was going to give up this stone, then the double hane is incredibly unreasonable.

Through 108: White used his attack to make points on the bottom side while black mostly just saved his stones. In addition, white finished with sente to take the biggest point.

Over the rest of the game, white got all the big double sente, like the hane-connects on the edge, and took both shared corners, while black didn't make much in way of gains.

Some ideas. As a guess I'd say the other guy was a SDK too, though stronger than you.

EDIT: at move 7, more of a personal opinion than an absolute fact