At last Sunday's BGA Northern Tournament, I hoped to finally break through to 3 kyu.
There were three rounds, in which I beat two 4 kyu players (who both committed go-suicide) and lost
to a 3 kyu, which is all rather inconclusive. No yose was played. I will post the other games
later, but we'll start with round 2, which was the game I lost.

Comments are invited.

You played right into the sanrensai strategy, letting him get two walls and the two-space jump at G10. Letting him resolve both corners early is aji keshi, and makes his game much easier.
You have to play lighter and more flexibly, maintaining aji.

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I think your play up until at least was perfect. may be questionable, but was good as well IMO.

When I was visiting the Seattle Go Center one time one of the things impressed on me by an extremely strong player there was that there was no need to quickly invade your opponent's sanrensei formation. Often times you can compete against it by just making your own territory to counter it. As such, I laughed out loud at your exclamation at that "The game was lost!"

Though, I do feel you are a bit behind at , and that's because you answered with . This is not necessary to live in the corner. If black hanes in the corner, you still have the attachment at H18 to live. Answering here was submissive play by you.

I actually played a remarkably similar game to yours a couple of days ago on KGS. I ended up losing by 4.5, but I'll post it here for interests' sake. Notice that I didn't feel the need to go into his moyo at all as long as I made enough of my own points. In the end I lost, and I can't say for sure whether my strategy was sound or not, but it's interesting anyway.


Here's another game remarkably similar to your own, this time by two professionals. Notice how white ignores the hane-and-connect by black on his top-right 3-3 group. This game should be far more instructive than my own. White even wins this one.

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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.

Thanks for the comments. Special thanks to DuskEagle for finding and posting two similar games.


This! It's all the more annoying that I already knew the move at H18, but forgot it
and played without thinking. Maybe I'll remember next time.

I now want to start a thread about how to estimate the score before deciding whether
to invade in configurations like those in the three posted games...

And another game to show that taking the corners giving 2 walls plus allowing the 2 space jump is perfectly playable:



Yes I am a lot stronger than my opponent so it doesn't prove much as I outplayed him on my half of the board to win by over 30 points, but i hope this helps you appreciate there's nothing wrong with giving your opponent lots of points so long as you have more yourself.

Good to see you again, Uberdude!

Kind of lame.

Don't let the double keima get away.

Very lame.

The last big play of the opening.

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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.